Dissatisfaction remains, as the nation observes the thirty-ninth death anniversary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman during National Mourning Day today, because justice has only been partially implemented in the heartless political killing that destroyed a family and hobbled a nation.
The attempt to smother justice and the litany of dirty political tricks to stamp out the trail of blood in Bangbandhu’s murder is a long one.
Even when, five years ago, it appeared that justice was finally being done in a long-awaited Supreme Court judgement, the government was still unable to implement it in full because half of the convicted killers, each handed down a death sentence, were still at large.
In its verdict on November 19, 2009, the Supreme Court ordered the death sentences of 12 convicted killers to be carried out. Of the twelve convicts, five were in jail, and seven were absconding.
The assassins who gunned down Bangabandhu at his residence at Dhanmondi Road 32 also murdered Bangabandhu’s wife, Begum Fazilatunnessa Mujib; sons Sheikh Kamal, Sheikh Jamal and 10-year old Sheikh Russell; and daughters-in-law Sultana Kamal and Rosy Jamal. Sixteen others, who were at the house, were also killed.
Bangabandhu’s daughters, Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana survived because they were abroad at the time.
When the Awami League formed its first government in 1996 after the military interregnum, they gave August 15 its due place in history by declaring National Mourning Day.
President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina both spoke on the occasion of National Mourning day.
Today is a public holiday. The national flag will be hoisted at half mast and black flags will be hoisted around the country as the nation mourns the killing of the nation’s founding father.