The United States has deported a man charged with attempting to kill Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, when she was the Opposition leader.
Najmul Maksud Murad, who led a team of assailants allegedly to kill Ms. Hasina, was deported to Bangladesh by the U.S. authorities in response to a notice issued through Interpol. The accused, an active member of the then Freedom Party, founded by the group of ex-army officers who had assassinated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, was earlier arrested by the U.S. police.
Murad escaped to the U.S. four months after the Awami League assumed power in June 1996, for the first time after the bloody changeover of 1975. The Interpol issued a red alert in 2011 to arrest Murad on Bangladesh’s request. He was arrested from Atlanta on February 2, 2012 with FBI and police help.
According to the charges, on August 11, 1989, a gang of seven to eight armed youths launched deadly attack on the ancestral house of Sheikh Hasina, then the opposition leader, around 12.30 a.m. They fired bullets and hurled grenades at the house to kill Awami League chief Hasina, who was inside. No one was injured in the attack.
Around eight years after the incident, CID submitted the charge-sheet in the case accusing 16 persons, including Murad, absconding Lt. Col. Khandaker Abdur Rashid, and Lt. Col. (dismissed) Syed Faruk Rahman and Maj. (retd.) Bazlul Huda. The latter two were executed for their involvement in killing Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Murad, had sought political asylum in the U.S. claiming himself as an activist of Freedom Party, but was denied the privilege. He is also accused in three other cases, including one for murder. On Wednesday, he was produced before a Dhaka court and was sent to judicial custody in two cases – one for attempt to murder and another for triggering explosions.
