'Bangabandhu assassination plot perpetrators will be unmasked'

DHAKA: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday said the perpetrators behind the conspiracy to assassinate Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, would be unmasked someday.

Virtually addressing a programme organised by the Bangladesh Krishak League from her official residence Gono Bhaban, she also reiterated her vow to materialise his unfinished dream of developing a hunger and poverty-free 'Sonar Bangla' (Golden Bengal) by presenting a better and beautiful life to the countrymen.

Recalling the August 15, 1975 carnage in which Sheikh Mujib, her father, and virtually her entire family was massacred, Sheikh Hasina, who also heads the ruling Awami League, said: "Bangabandhu, the father of the nation said: 'They (people) are like my childres, why would they kill me?' And that faith seemed to be the ultimate blow... those guys killed him mercilessly."

"As the citizens of Bangladesh, I have lost my family on August 15, but we had no right to seek justice. The way of trial of the murderers was blocked by the Indemnity Ordinance by Ziaur Rahman. Besides the killers were rewarded," she recalled, noting how then President Ziaur Rahman rewarded the killers of the father of the nation posting them in various embassies and gave them huge sums of money.

She noted how Ziaur Rahman's widow and BNP chief, Begum Khaleda Zia "postponed the judicial process of August 15 killing, establishing Rashid, the self-claim murderer in the chair of the Leader of the Opposition... and also nominated a murderer as a member of parliament as a reward."

Sheikh Hasina said: "When we came to the power in 1996, we repealed the Indemnity Ordinance and brought the killers to justice. The first day of the trial was on November 8... the day Khaleda Zia was in the opposition, she called the strike so that the judges could not attend the court, to stop the verdict against the killers."

She also said: "I wonder how any of our party members was involved in the assassination of Bangabandhu?"

"We've held trial of the August 15, 1975 carnage. But the perpetrators behind the plot are yet to be unmasked," she said. (IANS)

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