Our political history is riddled with tales of conspiracy and murder. Most unfortunate, however, is the precedent that has been set over the decades, of killers getting away with impunity.


Four years ago on August 21, 23 people were killed in a series of grenade attacks at an Awami League (AL) meeting being held in front of the party office at Bangabandhu Avenue. Though the prime target, former prime minister and the then leader of the opposition Sheikh Hasina, survived with ear injuries, a number of central AL leaders, including Women's Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman, were killed, over 200 people injured. Injuries ranged from splinter wounds, loss of eyesight and limbs. Some of the victims still carry the splinters, which could not be removed, inside their bodies.

Less than six months later, on January 27, 2005, former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria and four other AL activists were killed in another grenade attack on an AL rally in Habiganj; about 70 others were injured. Despite allegations of a controversial investigation, the trial began in May 2006 but was halted due to a High Court (HC) stay order. The case is now pending at the Sylhet Divisional Speedy Trial Tribunal.

Of the 10 accused in the Kibria case, eight are in detention and two absconding. All 10 are Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) men, one of them is the district BNP vice-president AKM Abdul Quayum, who was later expelled from the party. Links have also been made to the Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (Huji), but Kibria's family and party members claim that the masterminds behind the killing have been left out of the investigation and have urged the caretaker government to fairly investigate the murder.

As for the August 21 attacks, case proceedings finally began last month after police filed a chargesheet against 22 people, including former deputy minister for education in the BNP-led alliance Abdus Salam Pintu and eight absconding Huji members. This came out after an intense and long drawn out drama surrounding the investigation. The initial probe was carried out under the direct supervision of Lutfozzaman Babar, state minister for home affairs at the time. The 20 persons arrested following the investigation, which included a student and an AL leader and ward commissioner, however, were not found guilty in the later investigation. Another twist was brought about with the confessions of Joj Miah and two others who claimed that a criminal gang had carried out the attacks. These confessions were later found by the present administration to have been obtained

by force, and by paying Joj Miah's family a few thousand taka monthly. At one point, even a "foreign enemy" was implicated in the incident. Even after the usual blame game and all the twists and turns in the investigation process, doubts still remain as to whether the real culprits behind such a well-planned and deadly attack have been identified.

                                                                   In a nation that has witnessed the killing of its national leaders, including its founding father, almost from its birth, these killings do not come as a shock. The trend of killers getting away with impunity has been set early in our history. The same killers who on August 15, 1975 murdered Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and 21 members of his family and household, including children and pregnant women, also assassinated four national leaders -- Syed Nazrul Islam, acting president of the government-in-exile, prime minister Tajuddin Ahmed, finance minister M Mansur Ali and minister for home affairs, relief and rehabilitation AHM Qamruzzaman -- inside a prison cell, on November 3, 1975. The latter massacre was a part of a contingency plan in the event that a counter-coup occurred, basically, to wipe out a whole leadership whom the killers did not see fit to govern the nation. Not only were the perpetrators not punished for their crimes, but they were actually allowed to escape and even rewarded by the State with promotions and diplomatic postings abroad.
 
 

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was assassinated along with most of his family on August 15, 1975.

On May 30, 1981, President Ziaur Rahman, who ultimately came to power after the coups and counter-coups of the 1970s, was assassinated by a faction of army officers, in approximately the 20th coup attempt against Zia himself. The killing of Brigadier Khalid Musharraf, Colonels Huda and Haider in November 1975, as well as the execution of Col. Abu Taher by Zia and the hasty trial and punishment of Zia's own killers, were also said to be politically motivated.

But the culprits of the Bangabandhu and jail killings were, for 21 years, covered by the Indemnity Ordinance passed by the government under president Khandaker Moshtaque Ahmed, which was later legalised in parliament. Only in 1996 after the AL came to power was the ordinance repealed and a murder case filed on October 2 of that year. In November 1998, 15 former army officers were awarded the death penalty by the trial court in the Bangabandhu murder case. The HC later upheld the death sentences of 12 ---------