The efforts are still underway to bring back the fugitive killers of father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has said.
“We expect to bring them back and punish during the Mujib Year,” he said, sounding optimism at an event in Dhaka on Sunday.
Momen was speaking at the Bangladesh Muktijoddha Sangsad Command Council organised meeting to congratulate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on her re-election as the president of Awami League.
Freedom Fighter Abdul Haye presided over the discussion.
The father of the nation was killed along with most of his family members on August 15 in 1975 at his home. His daughters Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana survived as they were abroad at the time.
But the investigation into the deaths was stopped through an Indemnity Ordinance, which had saved the self-proclaimed killers from facing justice. The ordinance was abrogated in November 1996 when the Awami League returned to power, paving the way to bringing the killers to justice. After a lengthy trial, the court convicted 12 suspects and awarded them the death penalty in 2010. Five were hanged on Jan 28, 2010, one died of natural causes and six more - Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, M Rashed Chowdhury, SHMB Noor Chowdhury, Abdul Majed and Risaldar Moslemuddin - are absconding. Rashed Chowdhury is hiding at the US while Noor Chowdhury is living in Canada. The yearlong birth centenary of Bangabandhu will be celebrated from March 17 next year. The government is pushing the US and the Canadian administrations to send the convicts back. “We are continuing our efforts to bring them back,” the foreign minister said. He also asked the expatriate Bangladeshis to hold demonstrations in the US and the UK to create pressure on the authorities to send the fugitive killers here. “I asked them (Bangladeshi expatriates) to hold demonstration in front of their (fugitive killers) houses every month and chant the slogan – you are a killer, go back home,” he said. “If expatriates can do it, the killers will lead life like a prison even in their hideout abroad.”