By IANS,
Dhaka : Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the Bangladesh government will seek retrial of former army officers responsible for killing four leaders who were part of the country’s government-in-exile during the 1971 freedom movement.
At a function on their death anniversary Tuesday, Hasina accused opposition leader Khaleda Zia and her husband and slain former president Ziaur Rahman of ‘rewarding’ the killers.
The four leaders – Syed Nazrul Islam, acting president of 1971 Bangladesh government-in-exile, Tajuddin Ahmed, prime minister of the same government, M. Mansoor Ali, finance minister, and A.H.M. Quamruzzaman, minister for home affairs, relief and rehabilitation – were killed inside the Dhaka Central Jail Nov 3 in 1975, less than three months after the assassination of country’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
After a trial that dragged for years, the high court last year gave death sentence to an army trooper, Risaldar (retd) Muslemuddin, who is on the run. It acquitted six former military personnel, including Syed Farook Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda and A.K.M. Mohiuddin Ahmed of charges in what has come to be called the jail killing case.
The anniversary was observed even as trial of the same accused in the killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, carried out in August 1975 during a military-led mutiny, entered the 23rd day before a bench of the supreme court.