Flawed probe spared big fishes from prosecution: CJ

Chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha on Tuesday said that flawed investigation into the murder of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family members had spared some big fishes from prosecution.
‘I found involvement of more big fishes in the murders but we could not bring them to book because of flaws in the investigation although the Appellate Division in its verdict in the Bangabandhu murder case said that the murders were parts of a criminal conspiracy,’ he said inaugurating a blood donation programme on the Supreme Court premises.
The programme was organised for the second time to observe the 42nd anniversary of the death of Sheikh Mujib and all but two of his family members.
The Chief Justice said that the programme was arranged to collect bloods from the officers and staff of the Supreme Court and to pay loss of bloods of Sheikh Mujib by donating it to destitute people, who could not afford to purchase blood for treatments.
He said that he was among the Appellate Division judges who upheld the death sentences of the killers of Sheikh Mujib.
The chief justice said that he was then junior most Appellate Division judge and requested to come back from Singapore, where he was undergoing treatment for cancer, to hear the case. ‘I came back from Singapore without completing the treatment although doctors were not sure whether or not I would survive,’ he said.
He said that there was a problem in constituting the bench for hearing the Mujib murder case.
Justice Sinha termed cowardly murders the assassinations of Sheikh Mujib along his family members as a result of ‘criminal conspiracy.’
At the same programme, senior most Appellate Division judge Md Abdul Wahhab Miah said that there was no doubt that Sheikh Mujib was the father of the nation.
He said that during 1970 election he was an under graduate student and people heard no name of leaders except Sheikh Mujib in the then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
Justice Wahhab Miah said that the country became independent and he could now a senior judge at the Appellate Division because of Sheikh Mujib.

Source: New Age