Govt to bring back another Bangabandhu killer in Mujib Year, Momen hopes

Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen on Friday expressed his hope to bring back at least one of the remaining five fugitive convicted killers of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman within the Mujib Year, reports BSS.

“I hope, we will be able to bring back at least another (Bangabandhu’s) fugitive killers in the country within the Mujib Year (marking the birth centenary of founding father of Bangladesh),” he said.

He made the remarks to newsmen after paying tributes to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by placing wreath at his mazar in Gopalganj's Tungipara here.

The foreign minister, along with his family members, also offered special prayer at the mazar of the founding father.

Momen said that the government continues its efforts to bring back all of the remaining five furtive killers of Bangabandhu.

“We have already detected two fugitive killers of Bangabandhu living in the USA and Canada … we are putting all sort of efforts to bring back them,” he said.

The foreign minister said prime minister Sheikh Hasina has also written letters to her counterparts of those countries to send the killers back. “We are hopeful that we will be successful (to bring back the killers),” he said.

The government had traced out that Bangabandhu’s two convicted furtive killers Rashed Chowdhury and Noor Chowdhury are now residing in the USA and Canada respectively.

After knowing the whereabouts of the killers, the foreign ministry and the law ministry have been deeply engaged with the US and the Canadian authorities to bring back these two absconding murderers.

Meanwhile on April last, sacked military captain Abdul Majed, one of the Bangabandhu’s fugitive killers, was arrested and hanged at Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj.

Majed was on the run for nearly two and a half decades to evade justice and after his arrest, he said he had been hiding in India’s West Bengal for the past 23 years and returned to Bangladesh on March this year.

“It was a satisfaction that we had already been able to execute at least one of the fugitive killers (Majed) in this Mujib Year,” Momen said.

Twelve ex-military officers were sentenced to death for the 15 August, 1975 killing of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members and five of them were executed while one died a natural death.

The five sacked army personnel – Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, Mohiuddin Ahmed and Bazlul Huda – were hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on 28 January, 2010, while another convict, sacked colonel Rashed Pasha, died a natural death in Zimbabwe while he was on the run.

Farooq Rahman, Shahriar Rashid Khan, Mohiuddin Ahmed of artillery faced the trial in the judge court while Huda was extradited from Thailand and another Mohiuddin known as lancer Mohiuddin was sent back from the United States after the then district judge Golam Rasul delivered the judgment.