Commission to identify Bangabandhu murder instigators in December, says law minister

Anisul says the commission will be formed in the last half of December

Law Minister Anisul Huq says the government will form a commission in December this year to identify those who plotted the murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975.

“We will form a commission between Dec 16-31 that will identify those who instigated the killing of Bangabandhu,” Anisul said during a general discussion in parliament on Wednesday.

RAM Obaidul Muktadir Chowdhury, Awami League MP for Brahmanbaria-3 constituency, raised the proposal.

Anisul spoke about demands to form a commission inside and outside the parliament. “Those who carried out the murder have been adjudicated. Now there’s a demand for forming a commission.”

He mentioned the commission will be formed under the “Commission of Documents Act”.

The Father of the Nation was assassinated along with almost all members of his family at his Dhanmondi home on Aug 15, 1975. Awami League leaders have repeatedly accused a group of army personnel and local and foreign conspiracies behind the killings.

Bangabandhu’s killing was followed by the promulgation of an indemnity ordinance for the killers who were rewarded with high positions during the military rule of Gen Ziaur Rahman.

After the Awami League returned to power, led by Bangabandhu's daughter Sheikh Hasina in 1996, the ordinance was scrapped to make way for the trial of the killers and the court sentenced 15 people to death. The top court upheld death penalties for 12 of them.

One of the convicts died overseas, six of them were executed while five of them are still on the run.

Hasina herself claims that Gen Zia was involved in the assassination of Bangabandhu and his family. The Awami League leaders have long demanded the unmasking of those who plotted the killings.

In 1981, a commission was formed in the UK to investigate Bangabandhu’s murder but the members of the panel were blocked from entering a Zia-governed Bangladesh.

A year later, the commission published an initial report blaming the then government for not allowing “legal and judicial processes” over the assassination to proceed.

Anisul said the commission will be tasked with “marking the traitors for the new generation” rather than “exacting revenge”.

Lauding Hasina for her contributions in presenting Bangladesh on the world stage as a “role model of development”, the minister stressed that it is the government’s duty to identify them to the new generation so the “culprits cannot derail the progress of the country”.

He also criticised BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s decision to move in and out of the hospital “without permission”.