November 3 is observed as Jail Killing Day, marking the assassination of four prominent national leaders inside Dhaka Central Jail on this day in 1975.
The victims were Syed Nazrul Islam, acting president of the wartime Mujibnagar government; Tajuddin Ahmad, the country’s first prime minister; and cabinet members Captain M Mansur Ali and AHM Qamaruzzaman.
The killings took place less than three months after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members on August 15, 1975. The four leaders, close associates of Bangabandhu and key figures in the Liberation War, had been arrested and imprisoned following the coup.
On November 4, 1975, Kazi Abdul Awal, then deputy inspector general of prisons, filed a murder case at Lalbagh police station over the killings. The case subsequently became known as the Jail Killing Case.
Investigations remained stalled for 21 years. Legal proceedings resumed after the Awami League returned to power in June 1996.
On October 20, 2004, the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court delivered its verdict, sentencing eight people to life imprisonment and three to death.
Of the 11 convicts, 10 remain fugitives, while one death sentence has been carried out. Captain (dismissed) Abdul Majed, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Jail Killing Case, had also been sentenced to death in the Bangabandhu assassination case.
Majed, who had remained a fugitive for years, was arrested after returning to Bangladesh in April 2020. He was executed later that month.