Bangabandhu’s killer Majed finally hanged

Capt (dismissed) Abdul Majed, one of the convicted killers of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was finally hanged early Sunday.

After long 45 years into the assassination of Bangabandhu, Majed was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj at 12:01am.

“Majed was hanged at 12:01am,” Jailer Mahbubul Islam told the United News of Bangladesh over phone.

Inspector General (Prisons) Brigadier General AKM Mustafa Kamal Pasha and civil surgeon and district magistrate of Dhaka were present during the execution.

Jail sources said the body will be sent to his village home in Bhola for burial.

Earlier on Friday evening, family members met Majed at the jail.

Five members, including Majed’s wife Saleha, one brother-in-law and one uncle-in-law, entered the jail in the evening and they spent around 25 minutes with him.

On Wednesday, President Abdul Hamid turned down the mercy petition of Majed, clearing the way for his execution.

Also on the same day, Dhaka’s District and Session’s Court issued the death warrant for Majed after he was produced before his court from the jail.

A team of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit arrested Majed from the city’s Mirpur area on Tuesday.

On August 15, 1975, Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu and most of his family members were assassinated by a cabal of military men.

Eighteen members of his family, including Bangamata Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib, three sons – Captain Sheikh Kamal, Lieutenant Sheikh Jamal and 10-year-old Sheikh Russel, two daughters-in-law Sultana Kamal and Rosy Jamal, brother Sheikh Naser, peasant leader Abdur Rab Serniabat, youth leader Sheikh Fazlul Haq Moni and his wife Arzu Moni, Baby Serniabat, Sukanta Babu, Arif and Abdul Nayeem Khan Rintu, were, among others, killed on that fateful night.

Military Secretary Brigadier General Jamil was also killed. Several members of a family in the capital’s Mohammadpur area were killed by artillery shells fired by the killers on the same day.

During the assassination of Bangabandhu on August 15, 1975, Majed, Noor and Risaldar Moslehuddin along with others were present there when he was a lieutenant.

On November 19, 2009, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty of 12 convicted former army officials for the assassination of Bangabandhu and his family members.

Five killers of Bangabandhu – Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Mohiuddin Ahmed – were hanged in January 2010.

Another killer Aziz Pasha met natural death in Zimbabwe in 2001.

The fugitive killers are former Lt Col Khandaker Abdur Rashid, SHBM Noor Chowdhury, Shariful Haque Dalim, Rashed Chowdhury, and Risaldar Moslehuddin.
Of them, the government knew the whereabouts of Noor Chowdhury, Rashed Chowdhury and Moslehuddin while it was not sure about the other three fugitives -- Rashid, Dalim and Majed.

According to the government, Noor Chowdhury has been living in Canada while Rashed Chowdhury in the USA.

Kamruzzaman