Expat Bangladeshis chase off Bangabandhu’s killer Rashed Chowdhury from US programme

Protests by expatriate Bangladeshis in US have forced Rashed Chowdhury, one of the fugitive killers of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to leave a social gathering in California.

Chowdhury, who has been staying in the US for several years now, went to a local library in Sacramento on Saturday morning (Bangladesh time) where children from the Bangladeshi community were rehearsing for a cultural programme to celebrate the Bengali New Year.
 
Parents of several of the children were there too.
 
They said California State University teacher Abu Naser Rajib identified Chowdhury and shouted at him.
 

“Chowdhury cowardly left the venue,” a witness said.

Prof Rajib told bdnews24.com that he lost his temper seeing Bangabandhu’s killer.

“I will do it again if I see that killer around,” he said.

On Aug 15, 1975, a group of rogue military officers killed then Bangladesh president Sheikh Mujib and most of his family members.

The top court sentenced 12 people, including Chowdhury, to death for their role in the assassination. Five of them were hanged in 2011.

Bangladesh Ambassador to US Mohammad Ziauddin in an op-ed column wrote that Chowdhury had come to US in 1996 on a visit visa and applied for asylum.

He claimed the US “affirmed an initial grant of asylum” to Chowdhury and his family and was doing a background check on him.

The death-row convict had been moving around the country since then.

Sources say he currently lives with his son in Concord, about 110 kilometres from Sacramento, the capital city of California.

Chowdhury’s current visa status remains a mystery as immigration-related information is not publicly available in the US.

Bangladesh has been trying to get him back but there is no extradition treaty with the US. 

However, officials say US law allows its government to deport a convict through bilateral arrangement.