Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq yesterday said that conspirators of Bangabandhu murder who remained beyond the justice yet would face the consequences the way the direct killers were punished.
“Some of the killers were hanged [in 2010] and some are on the run...but the conspirators are yet to be punished,” he told a function organised to distribute cattle in madrasas and orphanages marking the National Mourning Day.
“They will also be punished in the soil of the country under the government headed by Prime minister Sheikh Hasina,” Mozammel warned.
Gazipur city unit Awami League organised the function in Chhaidana area when more than 100 cows were distributed among the orphanages and madrasas of 57 wards in Gazipur.
“BNP founder Ziaur Rahman was involved in the putsch conspiracy in which Bangabandhu was killed along with most of his family members...subsequently his son [Tarique Rahman] masterminded the August 21 grenade attack [in 2004] to kill her surviving daughter Sheikh Hasina,” the minister alleged.
Thirty-four years after the assassination, the Supreme Court on November 19, 2009 confirmed death sentences for 12 killers, five of who were hanged the following year. Six others are on the run while another died in Zimbabwe.
Zia is accused of patronising Bangabandhu’s killers by sending out most of them on diplomatic assignments for many years. He also cancelled the war crimes cases under way in 73 tribunals and released the convicts and accused from jail.
The government of Khandker Mushtaque Ahmed, installed after the bloody military coup, passed an ordinance in November 1975 indemnifying the perpetrators and closing the door on the possibility of a trial.
The Awami League government revoked the indemnity ordinance in 1996 and cleared the way for the trial.
