The Interpol has issued “red alert” to nab the fugitives linked to the assassination of Bangladesh’s founding leader Sheikh Mujib who are believed to be living abroad, a news report has said.
Home Minister Sahara Khatun has said the government has started the process to bring back the absconding killers.
Thirty-four years after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in a military coup, the country’s Supreme Court on November 19 upheld the death sentence on five of his killers.
Seven others, who are absconding, were also convicted to hang by the apex court. One of them has been confirmed by the Foreign Office to have died in Zimbabwe recently. The apex court upheld the death sentence awarded to the 12 killers by a lower court in 1998.
According to The New Nation, the Interpol issued a “red alert” to nab fugitives linked to the murder of Sheikh Mujib.
The Home minister said the government will send letters to all countries asking for their help in bringing back the absconding killers.
“Earlier we had sent such letters and now, after the apex court’s verdict, we’ll again send letters to all countries asking for their help in bringing back the absconding killers,” Ms. Khatun was quoted as saying by the Daily Star newspaper.
The six fugitives are sacked Lt Col Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haq Dalim, Noor Chowdhury, Rashed Chowdhury, Captain Mazed and Risaldar Moslem Uddin.
The report in the Bangladeshi daily said six of the 12 convicted killers of Sheikh Mujib were holed up in Libya, US, Canada, Pakistan and Kenya, while one died in Zimbabwe.
The five, who will face the gallows, are sacked army officers Lt Col Syed Faruq Rahman, Sultan Shariar Rashid Khan, Mohiuddin Ahmed, AKM Mohiuddin and ex-Maj Bazlul Huda.
Sheikh Mujib, popularly called Bangabandhu, who led Bangladesh to independence in 1971, was gunned down at his home in a posh Dhanmandi area, along with his wife and three sons in a coup on August 15, 1975. Sheikh Hasina was saved as she was abroad at that time of the massacre.
The case first came to the court in 1996, when Ms. Hasina became the prime minister for the first time. She removed legal barriers enacted by the post-Mujib military governments to protect the killers.
