Bangladesh on Sunday hanged one of the individuals convicted for assassination of its first Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at Dhaka Central Jail, the Dhaka Tribune reported. “The convict was hanged at 12.01 am Sunday,” Inspector General (Prisons) Brigadier General AKM Mustafa Kamal Pasha said.
Abdul Majed, a former military captain, was arrested on April 7, 45 years after Rahman was assassinated. The former Bangladesh army official was arrested by the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police from Gabtoli in Dhaka. President Abdul Hamid turned down Majed’s mercy plea on April 8.
Rahman was born on March 17, 1920, and was one of the central figures in Bangladesh’s struggle for independence from Pakistan, which led to the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971. He was killed along with many of his family members in a military coup on August 15, 1975 by a group of army officers.
Majed publicly declared his involvement after the killing, and had reportedly been hiding in India for many years. He crossed over to Bangladesh on March 26 through the border in Mymensingh after the coronavirus outbreak.
The former military captain is one of a dozen defendants whose death sentences were upheld by Bangladesh’s Supreme Court in 2009, after a trial court had sentenced the group of Army officials to death for the assassination of Rahman.
Late on Saturday, several people assembled outside the Dhaka Central Jail, ignoring a lockdown put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Majed’s body will be taken to Bhola district later on Sunday for his burial. However, five others accused of killing Rahman and his family are on the run.
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