Initiatives underway for review of Jail Killing Case

Initiatives are underway to review the trial of 1975 jail killings as the nation commemorates the gruesome assassination of four national leaders inside Dhaka Central Jail three months after the August 15, 1975 carnage. "The culprits should be tried and punished ... no civilised country can accept such murders inside secured prisons," Law Minister Barrister Shafique Ahmed told BSS. He added the process of review of a previous High Court (HC) verdict upholding the trial court judgement was underway as the family members of the four leaders have long been alleging that several culprits remained beyond justice despite the trial. Liberation war time acting President Syed Nazrul Islam, Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed and ministers Captain Mansur Ali and AHM Qamruzzaman were assassinated in the jail in the wake of a counter coup against the August 15, 1975 putsch plotters. Attorney general Mahbubey Alam said the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court earlier this year accepted the leave to appeal petition by the government while he expects the hearing on the review in January next year. Soon after the jail killings the then self declared president Khondker Mushtaque Ahmed constituted a three-member judicial enquiry commission in an apparent "eyewash" attempt but evidence produced during the trial process showed the jail authorities were forced to allow the assassins inside the prison on orders from himself. Subsequent military ruler president Ziaur Rahman scrapped the commission soon after assuming power. The HC in August 2008 confirmed the death penalty of only one sacked junior commissioned officer of army fugitive Risaldar Muslemuddin and life imprisonment of seven others but acquitted two others who were earlier handed down the capital punishment for the gruesome 1975 jail massacre. The HC also acquitted four others sentenced to life imprisonment earlier by the trial court in 2004 while most of them were tried in absentia as they are on the run.