‘If only jail authorities had shown courage’

Tajuddin Ahmad had told his family that they would possibly not seem him again when police were taking him away from their home during the regime of Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed, which had started within seven days after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed. “What do you think? When will they let you come home?” his wife Syeda Zohra Tajuddin had asked when a police convoy was preparing to take him to Dhaka Central Jail from their Dhanmondi residence on the morning of August 22, 1975. “Maybe never,” replied Tajuddin, the first prime minister of Bangladesh who led the wartime provisional government and is considered as one of the influential figures in the birth of the new nation. “The policemen had also told my father that he should bring some clothes when he asked them,” said his daughter Simeen Hussain Rimi, who was a ninth grader at that time, in an interview with the Dhaka Tribune. Now an Awami League leader, Rimi is the incumbent Member of Parliament from Gazipur-4 constituency. Talking to the Dhaka Tribune about August 15, 1975, Rimi said the military had cordoned off their Dhanmondi residence shortly after Bangabandhu was killed by a rogue group of army officials. Her father Tajuddin was put under house arrest. “They had placed anti-aircraft guns on our rooftop. No one was allowed to leave or enter our home,” she said, adding that her family was allowed to meet Tajuddin in prison at the end of September. At the end of October, army officials, who assassinated Bangabandhu, had started reccing around the prison cells where the four national leaders were confined, Rimi said. She continued: “One day, DIG of Prisons Kazi Abdul Awal was summoned to the Bangabhaban where Maj Syed Faruque Rahman had asked him about the jail’s security arrangement and details of countermeasures to any kind attack from outside on important prisoners. “The DIG replied that they had a contingent of special security personnel to tackle any emergency. When Faruque asked, ‘If the attackers are from the army?’, the DIG said they would be helpless in that case.” The DIG was also asked similar questions over phone in the next few days, she said. “My mother met my father for the last time on November 1. He had told her that they could be killed anytime.” Rimi thinks that the history could have been different if the jail authorities had shown some courage to protect the national leaders and stopped the killers on November 3. Since he was thrown in prison, Tajuddin Ahmed had kept himself busy with simple works and helping other inmates, she said. “He also loved gardening. He even planted around 70 saplings on November 1 inside the jail premises.” Rimi said: “On November 3, there were rumours that the four leaders were taken to either Bangabhaban or cantonment. The next morning, we came to know that shots were fired inside the jail. We had no idea what actually happened. “Later in the afternoon, three women came to my uncle’s house and told us that my father and the three leaders were killed. We buried my father at the Banani Graveyard on November 5.” “The same day, we heard rumours that our house will be attacked. Our family members left the house and split up, going into hiding in fear. The next two days, we had no idea where the other family members were,” she added.