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Clockwise from top left: Khandkar Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, Noor Chowdhury, Moslehuddin Khan, Abdul Mazed, M Rashed Chowdhury.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has questioned the human rights standard of the US and Canada that have granted political asylum to two of the killers of Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
“They (US and Canada) lecture on human rights while sheltering killers of my parents, my little brother, pregnant Arju Moni. How unfortunate are we!” Hasina said on Friday in Dhaka.
A group of rouge army men killed Bangladesh’s independence architect and most of his family on Aug 15, 1975, barely four years after liberation.
Bangabandhu’s daughters Hasina and Sheikh Rehana were abroad at the time.
Twelve men were condemned to death for their role in the killing. Five of them have been executed but six others are abroad.
Rashed Chowdhury and Noor Chowdhury were granted asylum by the US and Canada respectively.
At an event, remembering the victims of the Aug 21, 2004 grenade attack, Prime Minister Hasina said the nation had been rid of stigma after the execution of Bangabandhu’s killers.
“Several countries like the US and Canada have sheltered some of the killers,” she said.
“(Shariful Haque) Dalim and (Khandaker Abdur) Rashid are in Pakistan.
“We’re trying to bring them back.”
Of the 12 convicts, Syed Faruk Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Bazlul Huda and AKM Mohiuddin were hanged in 2010.
Another convict, Abdul Aziz Pasha, died in Zimbabwe.
Media reports suggest Moslemuddin is in the US while Abdul Mazed has been changing countries on a regular basis.
“Alas! The US is not sending back two of the killers. Rather, they have allowed them to stay there,” Hasina said. “Canada has done the same.”
Canada has already informed Bangladesh that it does not want to send back death-row convicts to their respective countries.
The prime minister recalled the killing of pregnant Arju Moni, wife of her cousin Sheikh Fazlul Haq Moni.
“She was shot dead in that state. How unfortunate this country is!” she lamented.
Bangladesh’s first military dictator and BNP founder Gen Ziaur Rahman came to power through a coup during the political chaos following Bangabandhu’s assassination.
He appointed the killers at Bangladesh’s foreign missions.
Zia also indemnified the self-proclaimed those killers. The Awami League-led government scrapped the indemnity ordinance on Nov 12, 1996.
Source: Bd news24
