Wait on for death warrant as Bangabandhu killer Mazed is caught effortlessly

The authorities are waiting for the death warrant of Abdul Mazed, one of Bangladesh’s most wanted criminals who was convicted of killing the nation’s founding father, following his arrest without much effort after decades.

The arrest of Mazed, a former army captain, comes when the country is on lockdown and the police are on the streets to ensure that people stay at home and avoid the risk of infection amid a novel coronavirus outbreak.

He was believed to be in India for over two decades following the return of the Awami League to power in 1996, which opened the path towards the trial of the killers of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most members of the family on Aug 15, 1975.

The assassins also enjoyed over two decades of indemnity due to a law passed by Ziaur Rahman, the first military ruler of Bangladesh. Mazed was awarded a big post during Zia’s regime as well.

Police told the court in a report that a patrol of their Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit stopped a person around 3:45am on a rickshaw near Gabtoli bus-stand in Dhaka.

After some incoherent information, according to the report, he provided the astonishing one – he is Mazed, the Bangabandhu killer who was condemned to death along with 14 others in 1998. The High Court upheld death sentence of 12 and finally five were hanged in 2010.

The report said he admitted to hiding in India and other countries, but it did not shed light on how he returned to Bangladesh.

“He might have returned to Bangladesh out of fear of the coronavirus,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal quipped when bdnews24.com asked about the matter.

Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner of media at Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told bdnews24.com earlier that Mazed was arrested in Mirpur-11.

Lawyer Mosharraf Hossain Kazol, who had assisted late Serajul Huq, the chief counsellor of the state in the Bangabandhu murder case, said the trial court needs to issue a death warrant for a death row inmate before the execution.

The jail authorities execute the death sentence once the warrant, wrapped in red clothe, arrives.

“We will appeal for the death warrant at the District and Sessions Judges Court of Dhaka as soon as possible,” Kazol, who now works for the Anti-Corruption Commission, said.      

Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government were already preparing to execute the death sentence of Mazed.

WHO IS MAZED?

Mazed was born to Ali Mia Chowdhury and Meherjan Begum of Batmara village at Kaliganj in Bhola’s Borhanuddin.

His wife Saleha Begum, four daughters and a son live in the house No. 10/A on road No. 1 in Dhaka Cantonment’s residential area.

The home ministry said in a statement that Mazed, along with some others, had performed the duty of controlling the radio station after the killing of Bangabandhu.

Before leaving Bangladesh with the other killers, he had worked at the Bangabhaban in “various capacities”, the home ministry said.  

Mazed and the others fled to Libya via Bangkok on orders from Zia later, the ministry said. 

After a three-month stay in Lybia, they were awarded posts in different overseas missions of Bangladesh. Mazed was posted in the embassy in Senegal.

After Mazed retired from the army, Zia made him an official with the rank of a deputy secretary at the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation on Mar 26, 1980, according to home ministry statement.

He was later made the director of youth development division at the then ministry of youth development.

Mazed was given the director’s post in the then department of savings later.