Profile of the two masterminds or 'Killer Majors' Syed Farook Rahman & Khandaker Abdur Rashid
Among the angry young men in the Bangladesh army were two young Majors who took immense pride in their professional competence and who now found their careers on the rocks because of Sheikh Mujib's studied neglect of the armed forces. One was Farook Rahman, Second-in-Command of the 1st Bengal Lancers, the country's only tank regiment which till the middle of 1974 had only three obsolete tanks in its armoury. The other was Khandaker Abdur Rashid, the Commanding Officer of the 2nd Field Artillery, also based in Dhaka.
Farook (also spelled Faruque or Farooq) and Rashid, both born within a month of each other in 1946, were good friends and brothers-in-law since they had married the daughters of S. H. Khan who belonged to Chittagong's leading industrial family. Farook was married to Farida, and Farida's elder sister Zubeida, nicknamed 'Tinku', was married to Major Rashid. The girls'
sasa A. K. Khan (the older brother of S. H. Khan) was a former Industries Minister in the Pakistan government.
- Syed Farook (or Faruque) Rahman(9 Aug 1946 - 28 Jan 2010) Army officer. Chief organiser of the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and others on 15 August 1975.
- Khandaker Abdur Rashid( - ) Army officer.
Farook and Abdur Rashid were ideally placed in Dhaka to carry out the coup.
Abdur Rashid commanded the 2nd Field Artillery conveniently based in the capital and Farook led the Bengal Lancers, Bangladesh's only tank regiment. Between them they had more fire power than anything Shiekh Mujib could hope to muster.
Anthony Mascarenhas, Journalist
Farook's background
Farook - full name Dowan Esheratullah Syed Farook Rahman - comes from an upper class Bengali family and claimed that on commissioning he was the first second-generation Bengali officer in the Pakistan army.
His father's family are known as the 'Pirs' (religious leaders) of Rajshahi, claiming direct descent from Arab Syeds who had settled on a modest estate in Nauga. His mother belongs to a land-owning zaminder family of the Jamalpur/Islampur area of Mymensingh who claim descent from Turkish soldiers of fortune under the Mughal emperors. Between them Farook was closely related to Dr. A. R. Mallick (former Vice Chancellor of Chittagong University who replaced Tajuddin Ahmad as Finance Minister), Syed Nazrul Islam (Acting President during Mujibnagar Government), Syed Ataur Rahman Khan (former Chief Minister of East Pakistan and Prime Minister of Bangladesh) and Major General Khaled Musharraf who was briefly Chief of Staff of the Bangladesh army in November 1975 before being killed in the
Sepoy Mutiny. In fact,
Brigadier Khaled Musharraf was Farook's mamu (maternal uncle).
Farook's father, Major Syed Ataur Rahman, was an Army doctor and Farook's education reflects the pattern of his postings.
He cross-crossed the sub-continent six times in 13 years starting off in the Fatima Jinnah girls school, Comilla (Farook jokes about his 'one and only time in a convent'). He went to Abbottabed (Burnhall), Dhaka (St. Joseph's), Quetta (St. Francis' Grammar School), Rawalpindi (Station Raod school where Field Marshall Ayub Khan's daughter Naseem was also a student), Dhaka (Adamjee College), ending up in a college in Kohat for a crash course in maths.
Farook was the eldest of three children - he had two sisters - and it was not intended that he should go into the army.
His love of flying got him a solo licence at the age of 17 and he had unsuccessfully tried to join the Pakistan Air Force. So his family got him admitted to Bristol University, UK, for course in aeronautical engineering and he would have gone to UK in 1966 but for the intervention of hostilities with India in the spring of 1965 over the Rann of Kutch.
Caught up in the prevailing patriotic fervour Farook, on his way to college, stopped off at the Inter-services Selection Board office in Kohat and volunteered for a commission. A week later when the call came there was initial disapproval from his mother who didn't want to lose her only son to the army. But Farook, with his father's consent, finally made it to the Pakistan Military Academy at Risalpur where he quickly distinguished himself by becoming battalion sergeant major. When he graduated 4th of 300 officer cadets, he was given his choice of service. Farook chose the armoured corps. "I didn't want to do foot-slogging in the army" he said politely turning down suggestions by Major Ziaur Rahman and Khaled Musharraf, then instructors in the PMA, that he should join the Bengal Regiment. Instead, Farook was appointed to the 13th Lancers.
Later Farook transferred to the 31st Cavalry, then based at Sialkot, and in 1970 at the age of 24, he found himself a captain, acting squadron commander of 'Charlie Squadron' and "in the command chain of the armoured corps". This significant career opening was made possible by his success in the tactical armour course which he topped with B+.
Anthony Mascarenhas, author of "Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood" (1986)
In addition to flying, Farook had other loves - reading volumes of military history and tactics, driving fast cars, and music.
Whilst based as a squadron commander in Abu Dhabi and billeted in the British Officers mess in June 1971 he came across a bundle of British newspapers exposing the Pakistan Army's atrocities in Bangladesh. Amongst these was Anthony Mascarenhas' "Genocide" article writeen in the Sunday Times.
What actually convinced me about your writing was your technique and reporting. The way you wrote about those Pakistani officers straightaway struck me that this man is not a fraud. Only a chap who has been in close touch with the Pakistan Army knows exactly how they behave, I know. And I also know that no one can simulate it. That's why I was solidly convinced that this chap knew exactly what he was writing and I couldn't be wrong. This forced me to decide to go.
I was not interested in politics because I was rising very fast professionally with the little service that I had. I was only interested in seeing how fast I could go. I was only interested professionally in being a general officer. Then suddenly this thing came to me and disrupted my whole damn career.
Farook tells Anthony Mascarenhas,
A letter from his uncle, Nurul Quader, a Bengali civilian officer in the Mujibnagar government, confirmed his worst nightmares. Bangladesh was at war with Pakistan.
Farook is an ardent nationalist. He is single-minded, with decisiveness grounded on careful planning. After carefully weighing the situation, Farook decided he could no longer serve in the Pakistan army.
On 12 November 1971, he packed a bag and drove to Dubai airport where he abandoned his car. Then he caught the first flight to Beirut and London for the long journey to Bangladesh.
Unlike other Bengali military officers who made their daring escape to India through the frontier, Farook reportedly travelled first to Tripoli before making his way to the Mujibnagar government. That tells you something.
The Daily Star (Bangladesh),
Farook and Rashid first met in the Pakistan Military Academy at Risalpur. Farook belonged to a senior batch, however it was common for the Bengali officer cadets to 'stick together'. The political tension that was engulfing the two wings of Pakistan were being felt within the military.
The Bengali officers, who were heavily outnumbered by Punjabis and Pathans, sat together in the cafeteria "to chit-chat" as Rashid tells it. Rashid was very talkative, Farook a good listener.
Rashid's background
Like Farook, Khandaker Abdur Rashid considered it his patriotic duty to join the Pakistan military academy as Indo-Pak war broke out in 1965.
Rashid came from the tiny village of Chaypharia on the road between Comilla and Daudkhandi where his father was a primary school teacher of modest means. Unlike Farook, Rashid was not connected to 'the great or the learned' and is not related to Khandaker Moshtaque Ahmed as is popularly believed.
Rashid is the first to deny Bangladesh gossip the he is a nephew of Khandaker Mushtaque Ahmed. There only connection is 'an accident of geography' according to Rashid. They come from the same sub-district.
Khandaker Abdur Rashid and Khandaker Moshtaque Ahmed are not related
Rashid was studying soil science, geography and geology at Dhaka University when the war broke out in 1965, and he thought it was a patriotic duty to seek a commission in the Pakistan Army.
He was selected and after a run-of-the-mill showing in the PMA, graduated 92nd in his class. Rashid requested posting to the Bengal Regiment but instead was given his second choice and commissioned in the 2nd Field Artillery then based in Bannu in the North-West Frontier Province.
When the Pakistan army crackdown came in March 1971 Rashid's unit was stationed in Hajira on the Pakistan side of the ceasefire line in Kashmir.
It was a trying period for the young Bengali officer. The radio reports he was picking up from different parts of the world gave horrifying stories of the trauma in East Pakistan. Rashid decided to defect from the Pakistan army.
I thought that once the movement had started, whatever the cause may be, and right or wrong, it had to be seen through to the end. If we failed to liberated our country then we would have been tremendously subjugated by the Pakistanis. They would never have treated us like human beings again. We therefore had no choice. It became a duty of every Bengali to fight for his country's liberation so that we could live independently with honour and respect.
Khandaker Abdur Rashid
Like millions of other Bengali women at the time, Rashid's wife Tinku rallied bravely behind her husband.
The country comes first - other things are not important. We must go.
Tinku (Zubeida) tells husband Rashid
To break out of their isolation in Hajira, Rashid applied for a 10-day furlough on the excuse that his parents were ill and he had to see them. After an agony of waiting his request was granted and on 2 October 1971 he took Tinku and their baby daughter to Dhaka. Rashid sent his wife and child to her parents in Chittagong and tried to cross the border into India at Agartala. He was nearly caught in the cross-fire on two occasions but fortunately for him he slipped through on his third attempt on 29 October 1971.
He re-entered Bangladesh through Sylhet at the beginning of December with a Mukti Bahini howitzer battery attached to Ziaur Rahman's 'Z' Force. After independence this battery was raised to a regiment, the 2nd Field Artillery, and Major Khandaker Abdur Rashid became its Commanding Officer.
Thus both Farook and Rashid joined the Muktijuddho during the final phase and were witness to the birth of Bangladesh. They were very passionate and proud of their new country and would regularly sit together and ponder about its future.
A single wall separated their bungalows in Dhaka cantonment and in the evenings the sisters and their husbands would often get together, as they put it, "to pass the time". It was these family ties that allowed them to confide in each other about their disenchantment with the way things were going in Bangladesh. The two Majors were otherwise poles apart in terms of personality and came from very different backgrounds.
...Farook and Rashid, like the other Bengali officers and men involved in the liberation movement - the Bangladesh army itself - had high hopes for Bangladesh after its creation. They were proud of their country, extremely nationalist and the fact that they were willing to take a back seat in the first years of independence clearly shows that they had no political ambitions. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, however, did not see it that way. His bitter experiences in Pakistani jails made him suspicious and hostile to all things military. In his anxiety not to re-create the 'monster' he had known in Pakistan he ended up doing that very thing - and it destroyed him.
Dalim incident proves a sore point for young army officers
Towards the end of January 1974 some young army officers were involved in an incident which would have a direct bearing on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's assassination. The occasion was a wedding reception in the Dhaka Ladies Club hosted by Major Shariful Haq 'Dalim' and his attractive wife Nimmi for Dalim's cousin Tahmina who was marrying Colonel Reza. Many high-ranking dignitaries from civil and military world were present as invited guests.
- Sharful Haque (Dalim)( - )
Nimmi is the daughter of R. I. Chowdhury and her family were close friends of Sheikh Mujib and his family.
Begum Chowdhury, a senior member of the Awami League, had accompanied Begum Mujib when she came to London for medical attention in 1973. R. I. Chowdhury, who was First Secretary (Consular) in the London High Commission, had also been favoured by Sheikh Mujib with more than the normal extensions of service after reaching retirement age. Thus Dalim and his wife were considered part of the 'in' set, but perhaps not so well in with Mujib as the brother of another guest at that wedding, Gazi Golam Mostafa. Apart from holding a very lucrative position as Chairman of the Bangladesh Red Cross, Gazi was also the Awami League's hard hitting city boss in Dhaka.
In the later capacity he was Sheikh Mujib's right-hand man, very tough, powerful and free-wheeling and was known privately as
"Lord of the Bustees (Slums)".
In one version of the story, Gazi Golam Mostafa's brother is alleged to have made some insulting remarks about Nimmi which led to altercation where Gazi's "bully-boys is said to have joined and roughed up the army couple". Some of the guest say the thugs attempted to kidnap them, but there was no confirmation of this.
In another version,
Gazi Golam Mostafa is alleged to have kidnapped Major Dalim, Nimmi and their aunt after an altercation between Gazi's teenage sons and Dalim's brother-in-law Bappi from Canada. According to this version an incensed Gazi stormed into Ladies Club in the middle of the wedding ceremony with a car and two microbuses filled with 10-12 civilian with sten guns and kidnapped Major Dalim, two of his freedom fighter friends (Alam and Chullu), his wife Nimmi and his aunt who was also the bride's mother.
Where is Major Dalim? What does he think of himself. He has gone too far. I shall teach him a lesson today.
Gazi Golam Mostafa is alleged to have shouted at the top of his voice
Gazi Golam Mostafa had intended to take them to the notorious Rakkhi Bahini's headquarter in Sher-e-Banglanagar (known as the Second Capital) but Dalim talked him into taking them to Sheikh Mujib first to resolve the matter as many people had witnessed their abduction and "the situation could get out of control". Thus Gazi changed his mind and took them to Sheikh Mujib's home in Dhanmondi where both parties appealed to Sheikh Mujib for redress.
Regardless of the true version of the incident, the end result was disastrous.
Dalim's army colleagues decided to take immediate action. They piled into two trucks and went hunting for the offending gang and ended up wrecking Gazi Golam Mostafa's bungalow. They raided the house and took everyone available into custody. The army also established check posts all over the city and checked every passing car.
Sheikh Mujib was visibly incensed with Gazi's hot-headedness and called upon Chief of Army Staff Major General K. M. Shafiullah to dampen the tension.
- K. M. (Kazi Mohammad) Shafiullah(Born ) Bir Uttam. 2nd Chief of Army Staff (1971 - 1975) and senior vice president of Sector Commanders' Forum. During 1971 Muktijuddho he was the Second in Command of 2nd EBR (East Bengal Regiment) that revolted with 6 officers on the night of 25 March 1971. Became Sector 3 (Sylhet-Brahmanbaria) Commander. Led "S-Force" (named after his surname). Retired from politics after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's assassination in 1975. Accepted ambassadorial appointment overseas.
"Damn fool! What have you done?" Roared Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He left his chair came forward and embraced both of us. Khalamma could not walk properly. Kamal and others helped them to up stairs. It was a pathetic seen. In the room we were only four of us Nimmi, Sheikh Saheb, Gazi and myself. Nimmi out of anguish, anger and insult burst into tears. Sheikh Saheb was trying to clam her down. Gazi was standing at a corner trembling like a guilty person. Suddenly the Red telephone rang. The call was from Gazi’s residence. The army had raided his house and took every one available into custody. Not only that, the army established check posts all over the city and checking every passing car. As the news of the kidnapping reached the officer’s mess, the young officers came out instantaneously and had started looking for Major Dalim and his wife. Members of the MP units were all over in strength. There was a hue and cry in the Capital. Gazi is also missing. After receiving the call Sheikh Saheb’s face became dark. Immediately he picked up the other receiver and in front of us called Major General Shafiullah and said, "Hello Shafiullah! Gazi Dalim and Nimmi all are here with me. I want you here right away".
After talking to Major General Shafiullah he turned to Gazi and said, "Come on! beg apology from Nimmi and Dalim".
As Gazi took a step forward Nimmi roared like a wounded tigress.
"Don’t you dare to come near me. A swine like you don’t have any right to beg apology". Then she turned towards Sheikh Mujib and said: "On whose blood you are the Prime Minister today? You claim yourself to be the father of the nation. I want justice from you. I want the same kind of justice that you would have meted out had it been either Sheikh Hasina or Sheikh Rehana in my place insulted in similar way. I want a reply from you. How dare this man - Gazi, the 'Kambal Chor' dares to lay hands on those freedom fighters on whose blood and sweat you and your party are enjoying the power today? I want an answer. Uptill now you can not say that I had ever asked anything from you personally. But today I am asking fair justice. If you don’t do the justice then Allah will render his judgment".
In spite of my best efforts I failed to claim her down that day. Usually soft and composed Nimmi even could have such fire within herself that became known to me just on that day. It was quite amazing for me.
Sheikh Saheb again embraced her affectionately and said "Maa please cool down. You are just like Hasina and Rehana to me. I shall definitely do the justice. It is really very wrong! Grossly incorrect! Please you calm yourself".
Then he called Sheikh Rehana and asked her to take Nimmi up stairs.
Major Dalim re-accounts the ordeal
Once Major General Shafiullah arrived and Major Dalim had reassured his colleagues that they were well, Sheikh Mujib asked Dalim to forgive Gazi and turning to Gazi with annoyance ordered him to "go and complete the ceremony". However, Dalim was not willing to forgive nor forget.
Mr. Gazi need not have to come to complete the ceremony. I can neither forgive him. That will be against my principles. We fought and liberated the country sacrificing our blood. Shedding blood is nothing new for us. We are serving in uniform not for money. Mr. Gazi has very wrongfully hurt my pride as a freedom fighter and has dishonored my uniform. You had deployed us to protect the people and to ensure their security to get hold of the armed miscreants and to punish them. In such a situation we are being dishonored. As the Prime Minister of the country you have promised to do justice. We shall wait to see what justice your render.
Major Dalim tells Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,
Though Sheikh Mujib managed to temporarily soothe the situation the incident soured all relationship. Gazi Golam Mostafa would not forget the incident in a hurry.
Later, Major Dalim was posted in Comilla Cantonment as a troop of the 1st Field Artillery Regiment along with Captain Bazlul Huda and Major Aziz Pasha. Here they met with Major Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, the Chief Inspector of Army School of Physical Training in Comilla. However, after an incident was reported, Sheikh Mujib instituted a military inquiry into the young officers' misconduct. As a result
22 young officers were dismissed or prematurely retired from service for
'a breach of indiscipline'. Among them were Major Dalim, Major Nur Chowdhury (ADC to General Osmani) and Captain Huda.
Major Dalim believed Gazi Golam Mostafa had influenced the decision as many of the officers who were dismissed had attacked and ransacked his house during the wedding incident. This new incident gave Gazi the perfect excuse 'to get even'.
Thus Tahmina’s marriage became a witness to a historic event and a night to remember. The event itself has become a glaring testimony to prove the reckless and outrageous atrocities of the Awami League leaders and their private Bahinis. I was not finding any justification for such an hineous act where a man of Gazi Golam Mostafa's stature could personally get involved.
Much later I gathered from various reliable sources that after our Comilla operation the Awami League brought in lot of pressure on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to teach a lesson to me for my outrageous action. But Sheikh Mujib under such pressure had said to his party people, "Army has not done their job as novice. They have done everything as par law. Each and every one was caught red-handed with evidences. In such a situation what can I do?" Against this inability Gazi took the responsibility on behalf of the party to teach me a lesson. For long he was looking for a chance. And the chance came. On the marriage night whatever had happened between Bappi and his sons he wanted to capitalize on that to teach me a befitting lesson.
Major Dalim
The Dalim incidents caused discontentment to grow within the army who were aggrieved by the perceived nepotism of Sheikh Mujib. Whilst young talented officers like Major Dalim were discounted and their military career ended, people close to Sheikh Mujib were being rewarded. Gazi Golam Mostafa, for example, became an Executive Committee Member of BAKSAL.
As a gesture to the family Sheikh Mujib tried to make it up to Dalim by assisting him in setting up a business venture. The hurt, however, rankled. A year later the three ex-army officers would figure prominently in Sheikh Mujib's assassination.
Meanwhile the Dalim incident caused widespread resentment among the younger officers. They felt betrayed not only by Sheikh Mujib but also by their seniors in the army. Many of them began to carry side arms for personal protection whenever they went out with their families and they talked openly about their dissatisfaction. Military messes became centres of plotting.
The intelligence services kept close tabs on all this and when their reports reached Sheikh Mujib he made no secret of his intention to supplant the army with the Rakkhi Bahini. The more he moved in that direction, the more he alienated the army.
Antohony Mascarenhas,
Meanwhile, a frustrated Major Shahriar resigned from the Bangladesh Army and started a business
dealing in old TV and Refrigerators in Dhaka. There he met with Major Dalim on regular basis and both discussed their frustration.
One day Major Dalim came to (my) business office and lamented that it is a far cry to get any justice for freedom fighters like them, rather it was difficult for them to survive.
Nobody would care about them even if they die on the road.
He further said that on one hand Sheikh Mujib was brain washed and on the other, everybody surrounded him in such a way that he was not allowed to know the truth. This must be redressed.
Major Dalim shares his frustration with Major Shahriar
- Nur Chowdhury( - )
- Bazlul Huda( - )
- Shahriar Rashid Khan( - )
- Abdul Aziz Pasha( - )
Gift of tea result in Farook getting Egyptian tanks which kills Sheikh Mujib
During the Arab-Israeli war in October 1973, the Bangladesh government, anxious to make a show of support for the Arab cause, decided to make a gift of a plane-load of the finest domestic tea to Egypt. In the absence of more tangible support with money and arms, the tea was at best a token gesture.
On 27 October 1973 a Bangladesh Biman 707 with the fragrant cargo took off from Dhaka and after attempting a landing at Cairo airport, which was closed, was diverted to Benghazi in Libya where it off-loaded the tea.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat never forgot Bangladesh's unusual gesture and decided to make a handsome gesture in return. He knew that Bangladesh had no worthy armaments so he gifted them 30 T-54 tanks. The offer was conveyed to Sheikh Mujib in the spring of 1974. It dismayed him. He was alarmed at the prospect of having such military equipment in Bangladesh. He did not want tanks. They did not fit in with his ideas about the army. The Foreign Office and his ministers, however, persuaded Sheikh Mujib that he could on no account refuse President Sadat's gift.
The 30 T-54s and 400 rounds of tank ammunition arrived in Bangladesh in July 1974, making a very welcome addition to the army's strength which was then built around all of three vintage ex-Pakistan army tanks left over from the 1971 war. When they were ceremonially handed over to the 1st Bengal Lancers, Bangladesh's only 'armoured' regiment,
one of the officers taking delivery of the tanks was Major Farook Rahman. Though officially second in command of the regiment, he was the most experienced armoured corps officer and the tanks came effectively under his control.
Thus man and weapons were brought together - all because of a gift of tea.
One year later Farook led the tanks to Sheikh Mujib's house and changed the course of Bangladesh.
Anthony Mascarenhas,
http://www.londoni.co/index.php/history-of-bangladesh?id=197
http://www.londoni.co/index.php/history-of-bangladesh?id=24
Following the independence of Bangladesh in 16 December 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to Bangladesh, via London and Delhi, with a pomp on 10 January 1972.
But this euphoria would not last long. Four years later, with the country still unable to recover from the destruction caused by
Swadhinata Juddho (Liberation War) and growing discontent over Sheikh Mujib's self-appointment as President and creation of one party movement, he was massacred at his home in Dhaka along with 21 members of his family and close associates. This killing spree took part in 15 August 1975 and was allegedly carried out by ex-Mujib army officials.
The
char netas (four leaders) who worked closely with Sheikh Mujib and who set up the Mujibnagar government, the first government of independent Bangladesh, were captured and also killed in Dhaka Central Jail three months later in 3 November 1975.
Bangladesh in turmoil after 1971 Independence
Facing the disastrous aftermath of the
1970 Bhola Cyclone, the
1971 Muktijuddho, and then the 1974 famine where over 1.5 million people were killed, Prime Minister Sheikh Mujib set about restoring public order by discharging more power and control over to himself.
The
Jathir Pitha (Father of the Nation) had a demi-god status during the 1960s and early 1970s. He was able to rouse mass sentiment for a nationalist revolution. However, rebuilding a war-torn nation in the aftermath of continuous natural disasters would prove a more challenging task.
Matters were compounded by internal conflict within the problem-ridden new state. If 1973 was the year of violence, 1974 was the year of famine. As thousands of people died, the prime minister's party, the Awami League, disintegrated into warring factions. To impose order, Sheikh Mujib took some drastic decision like creating the
Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini.
Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini (JRB) - from law enforcers to Sheikh Mujib's private army
Sheikh Mujib's hatred for all things military
Sheikh Mujib had an understandable hatred for all things military. He had suffered grievously at the hands of Pakistan's two military dictators, Field Marshall Ayub Khan and General Yahya Khan. Ayub had arrested Sheikh Mujib on 7 October 1958, the day he seized power. During the next 10-and-half-years of Ayub's dictatorship Sheikh Mujib had been jailed for long periods in solitary confinement. Then in 1968, while once more in detention for political activity, he was made the principle accused in the notorious Agartala Conspiracy trial in Dhaka. The charge conspiring with India for the secession of East Pakistan. It was a capital offence and Mujib only escaped the gallows because a countryside upsurge against Ayub in 1968 forced him to drop the charges and bring Mujib to the conference table.
While a prisoner of General Yahya Khan in 1971 during the Bangladesh independence struggle, Sheikh Mujib had had an even closer brush with death. According to Sheikh Mujib, he had been tried by a military court and found guilty of treason and sedition. He was to be executed on 15 December 1971, a day before Pakistan surrendered to Bangladesh in Dhaka. Fortunately for him the ceasefire was ordered that night and he was smuggled away to safety by the prison jailor.
Sheikh Mujib carried his hatred of the army with him to the grave. This attitude was shared by his ministers and other senior Awami Leaguers who had also escaped death at the hands of the Pakistan army in 1971.
To their [senior Awami Leaguers] basic hostility of things military was added, after independence, the fear that the Bangladesh army might try to supplant them. This anxiety was grounded in the fact that the Bengali military men had been in the thick of the fighting during the independence movement while the Awami Leaguers stayed safely in Calcutta out of the line of fire. As such it would have been understandable if the army men with the other freedom fighters had insisted on positions of influence in the new state. The army as an institution at least did not make this demand. It was content to let Mujib rule and in the first two years of independence gave him loyalty and support.
Anthony Mascarenhas, journalist who wrote the groundbreaking 'Genocide' article in 1971 & author of "Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood" (1986)
Mujib and his ministers, however, from the very start deliberately emasculated [made efforts to weaken] the role of the Defence Forces. Before he was one month in office Mujib took the first step in this direction by signing a 25 year Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance with India. The Indian army had helped to create Bangladesh and it was to India that Mujib now looked to protect it from external aggression. The treaty thus obviated the need for an effective fighting force and the country’s defence establishment was reduced to a police-keeping and largely ceremonial role.
I don't want to create another monster like the one we had in Pakistan.
Sheikh Mujib told Anthony Mascarenhas in February 1974 that he was against a powerful military force
Nevertheless, in independent Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Mujib took initiatives to establish military academies for building skilled and ideal armed forces in the country. He inaugurated the Military Academy in Comilla Cantonment in 1974. However, with the administration of the country at its infancy and his personal dislike for all things military, Sheikh Mujib remained reluctant to dispense too much power to the army and maintained a cautious approach throughout his reign.
When you play with gentlemen, you play like a gentleman. But when you play with bastards, make sure you play like a bigger bastard. Otherwise you will lose. Don't forget I have had good teachers.
Sheikh Mujib allegedly remarked to Anthony Mascarenhas during a poker game on a night train from the Grand Canyon to Los Angeles
Creation of JRB
In early 1972, the government announced the formation of an elite paramilitary force named the
Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini(National Defence Force), or JRB for short. The Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini Order, 1972 (President's Order no. 21 of 1972) was promulgated on 7 March 1972 - on the first anniversary of Sheikh Mujib's famous
Ebarer Sangram speech - with a retroactive effect from 1 February 1972.
The idea for the JRB is believed to have resulted from a discussion between the top leaders of Mujib Bahini (also known as Bangladesh Liberation Force or BLF) and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The leaders made Sheikh Mujib realise that the fruit of the labour during the independence war could be undone by anti-revolutionary forces within the young volatile nation.
It was a view also shared by Tajuddin Ahmad. He advised Sheikh Mujib that the 100,000 trained and armed common people that had participated as muktijuddhas (freedom fighters) during the Swadhinata Juddho(Independence War) should come under national service and a paramilitary force should be formed for them. The police number was also at its lowest, with many becoming
shaheeds (martyrs) during the war, and unable to provide adequate protection from 'miscreants' who outnumbered them during attacks. Smuggling of raw material, machineries and factory goods across the border into India also became 'a headache' for the new government. Sheikh Mujib was also aware of the growing threat of coup from the military. To combat these, Sheikh Mujib formed the new elite force
with the help of Prime Minister Mansur Ali to provide security for the people
after initially rejecting the idea.
The task force was formed without any consultation in the cabinet.
It is alleged that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had first expressed his desire to form such a force to Colonel Sarwar as early as 20 January 1972 - ten days after his arrival in Bangladesh.
Officially the JRB was the national militia tasked with recovering arms from the civilians. However, in practice, it behaved like a private army and acted as an armament to protect the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman-regime from military coup and other armed challenges.
So about 110,000 government certified freedom fighters, at the very outset of the independence, felt ignored and excluded from the reconstruction of the new country.
Though Sheikh Mujib offered the freedom fighters to join the armed forces, only 8,000 turned up - mostly young Mujib Bahini members and other loyal cadres - and they were absorbed in the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini.
In effect, (the Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini became) his private army to which privileges and hard-to-get commodities were lavishly given.
Country Studies
The Jatiya Rakki Bahini Order 1972 (President's Order No. 21 of 1972)...lacked the basic framework of law within which a peacekeeping force could develop into an institution. The law provided that it would be employed to assist the civil authority in the maintenance of internal security and would also assist the armed forces when called upon by the government to do so, that its superintendence would vest in the government and that it would be administered, commanded and controlled by its Director (later designated as Director General) in accordance with the rules to be made as required by Article 17 of the Order and instructions to be issued by the government from time to time. Any officer of the Raksi Bahini while performing any function could, without a warrant, arrest any person whom he reasonably suspected of having committed a cognizable offence under any law, search any person, place, vehicle or vessel and seize anything found in the possession thereof in respect of which or by means of which he had reason to believe an offence punishable under any law had been committed.
Banglapedia - Rakki Bahini
Indian link
Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini was actively deployed just after the Indian Army left Bangladesh on 17 March 1972.
The force was trained and brought up by Indian Major General Sujan Singh Uban from Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) as per the request of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. General Uban, a recruit of CIA in the 60s, had also trained the Mujib Bahini in India during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and accompanied Sheikh Moni to Bangladesh.
The basic training of the force was not provided by the Bangladesh Army but instead given in India, by Indian Army.
Any additional special training were also provided by India in the Indian Military Academy of Dehradun. The JRB troops were armed with Indian assault rifles, heavy machine guns, steel helmet, and leather boots.
Jeeps and trucks were imported from India and their olive green-coloured uniform was similar to that of the Border Security Force 66 of the Indian Army.
The JRB was led by Brigadier A. M. S. Nuruzzaman who was appointed as the Director General while Major Anwarul Alam Shahid (Training), Lieutenant Colonel Abul Hasan Khan (Administration), Lieutenant Colonel Sarwar (Operations), Lieutenant Colonel Sabihuddin (Signals) and Lieutenant Colonel Azizul Islam (Zonal Head Quarter of Chittagong) were his five deputies.
- Sujan Singh (S. S.) Uban()
- A. M. S. Nuruzzaman()
The JRB's secretiveness, the presence of Indian officers in its midst, the similarity of its uniform to another country's military dress created "utter confusion" which was further confounded by the sudden introduction of the one-party system. Allegation of it being India-led conspiracy had dogged the JRB from its inception in 1972 to it's eventual collapse three years later.
The Bangladesh military has been incensed by the poor treatment it had received from the Indians during the civil war. It felt that the Indian Army deprived it of victory by intervening in the conflict, [and] it resented the expropriation of captured Pakistani military equipment by the Indian Army and saw the JRB (Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini) as Indian-inspired force to ensure Indian domination of the post liberation Bangladesh.
J.K. Chopra, author of "Bangladesh as a New Nation" (2000)
Growing menace
It is not true that the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini did not do anything good. Initially they recovered a large quantity of arms and smuggled goods and restrained the hoarders and black marketeers. However, within a very short period of time JRB became much more than another law-enforcing agency - it started to
"represent Awami League's armed branch" and was being used for political purposes.
Acting like storm troopers the members of the Bahini would often surround a whole village combing for arms and "miscreants". In the process, they tended to commit serious excesses with no regulation to control their conduct or to make them accountable to authorities. They were also accused of torturing people for obtaining their confessions apart from resorting to looting and extortion.
Banglapedia - Rakki Bahini
The raising of a new paramilitary force, JRB having exclusive allegiance to Sheikh Mujib proved morally and politically disastrous. JRB became the target of anti-Mujib campaign.
JRB seemed to work as official goons for strike - breaking, chasing out slumdwellers from Dhaka, searching for rice hoardings in the countryside and fighting the underground guerrillas. They used brutal methods. Working at the behest of the Mujib regime, JRB was used against both political opponents and the army as a warning to them not to think of a coup.
Joseph Benjamin, author of "Democratic Process, Foreign Policy and Human Rights in South Asia" (2010)
At the height of its influence in 1975 JRB was 25,000 member strong and plans were put in place for it to grow to an astronomical 130,000 by the end of 1980 - that's more than the number of muktijuddhas who fought in the Swadhinata Juddho. These troops would have been distributed to every district under the authority of the 60 District Governors.
To finance this force, Sheikh Mujib used the major part of the 13% of public expenditures allocated to defence, and recruitment of new soldiers in the army was almost stopped. When the Rakkhi Bahini was raised to 25,000 men with basic military training and modern automatic weapons, the
discontent amongst some army men turned into antagonism. All these discrimination created rift between the two forces.
Bangladesh Army, which was formed through a war against an army of occupation with some true patriots in 21 November 1971, found themselves as an orphan.
While the Jatiyo Rokkhi Bahini was being enlarged, Bangladesh Army was just watching that. There was no T.O.E. (Table of Organization and Establishment). Military personnel did not have sufficient arms. Most of them had no uniforms, boots, helmets etc. In winter they had to guard the border in slippers.
Major General Manzoor, a freedom fighter who escaped from Pakistan, defying the Army to join the liberation war told [Anthony] Mascarenhas that sometimes military personnel were killed by National Defence Force (JRB) blaming them as collaborators [razakars].
Wikipedia - Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini
Eminent personalities such as Professor Ghulam Murshid compared it with Gestapo, while journalist Anthony Mascarenhas said that there were a few differences between Hitler's Nazis and Sheikh Mujib's Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini.
The Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini, which roughly translated means National Security Force, was an elite para-military force whose members had to take oaths of personal loyalty to Mujib. Despite its high-sounding name, it was a sort of private army of bully boys not far removed from Nazi Brown Shirts.
... Its officers were mainly political cadres and it was freely used to crush opponets and critics of Mujib and the Awami League. In time it completely terrorized people.
Anthony Mascarenhas' damning verdict on JRB
JRB was designed to purge radical elements both within and outside of the party, and eventually to become the sole 'monopolizer' of legitimate violence in Bangladesh.
...An interesting comparison can be made between the JRB and the Federal Security Force that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto created in Pakistan at the same time.
It was one of the fundamental mistakes he [Sheikh Mujib] made in his three and half years in the helm.
It has been said that Castro told him not to run an independent country with the help of officials experienced in running a colonial administration. He advised an overhaul in the administration during the Non-Aligned Summit in Algiers, in 1973, where the two met for the first and the last time. But Mujib didn't listen to that suggestion.
Ataus Samad, journalist
Indemnity for JRB
In 1974, members of the paramilitary Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini were granted immunity from prosecution and other legal proceedings by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
On May 1974 a 17-year-old teenager had 'disappeared' after four days of torture by JRB. The Supreme Court of Bangladesh castigated the JRB for 'operating outside the law' and functioning without any rules of procedure or code of conduct. However, rather controversially, Sheikh Mujib stripped the Supreme Court of intervening in such cases by amending the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini Order of 1972 on 6 May 1974.
Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini (Amendment) Act, 1974
Article-2 says,
"8A. Notwithstanding anything contained in, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (V of 1898), or in any other law for the time being in force, any officers may, while performing any function under article 8, without warrant -
a) Arrest any person whom he reasonably suspects of having committed a cognizable fence under any law;
b) Search any person, place, vehicle or vessel, and seize anything found in the possession of such person or in such place, vehicle or vessel in respect of which or any means of which he has reason to believe an offence punishable under any law has been committed."
Article 3 says,
"No suit, prosecution, or other legal proceedings shall be against any member of the Bahini for anything which is in good faith done or intended to be done in pursuance of this order or rule made there under."
According to these provisions anybody can be arrested by the JRB at will and they would remain immune from any judicial supervision as long as their activities were carried out in "good faith".
This indemnity refrained the Judiciary Division from taking any legal actions. This was a boost to their [JRB] desperate actions.
Wikipedia - Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini
Because of the organisational weakness in the Bahini's hierarchical authority and its fast deteriorating public image, an increasing number of desertions from the force were taking place. In order to restore discipline in the force the government further amended in the original Order (Jatiya Rakki Bahini (Amendment) Ordinance 1975). The articles defined a large number of major and minor offences for which the officers and the Rakkis could be tried in special courts or summary courts.
Banglapedia - Rakki Bahini
Mujib was a better rhetorician than administrator, and had only limited success in dealing with these challenges. By 1973, frustrations with his inept leadership were being vented in public protests. Attempting to retain control of the fragile and violent nation, Mujib, the once-beloved Bangabandhu, created the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini, a shadowy paramilitary force responsible directly to him. Violence begat violence, with more than 2,000 politically motivated murders occurring in 1973 alone. Among the victims were several members of Parliament. In May 1974, after the country's Supreme Court reprimanded the Rakkhi Bahini for having tortured and killed a 17-year-old boy, Mujib stripped the court of its powers to pass judgment over his personal terror force.
Alex Counts, author of "Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance are changing the world" (2008)
Reasons for army's anger towards Sheikh Mujib
Army's dislike of Sheikh Mujib's pro-India and Soviet Union stance
Bangladesh army officers who were held in West Pakistani jails during the Liberation War of Independence gave Sheikh Mujib their full support in the question of the independence of Bangladesh. But they were in opposition to the pro-Indian sympathy and the support for the Soviet Union which Sheikh Mujib showed. As long as Sheikh Mujib was Bangladesh's Head of State relationship with India remained cordial.
His public expression of gratitude to Indira Gandhi and "the best friends of my people, the people of India" after his release, were
not well received by many in politics and the military who were critical of India's excessive influence. The subsequent 25-year treaty of 'Indo-Bangladeshi Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Peace' signed by him and Indira Gandhi (thus also referred to as 'Indira-Mujib Treaty') on 19 March 1972 further antagonised many who sought to distance Bangladesh from India. Issues such as India's late, albeit crucial, entry into the Muktijuddho (officially on 3 December 1971 - eight-and-half months after West Pakistan's attack), the dispute over water resources of the Farakka Barrage (resolved much later in 1996) and India's perceived delayed withdrawal of troops began to
diminish the spirit of friendship.
The charge of Mujib's dependence on India was sometimes accompanied by wild allegations against India.
The weekly Hak Katha [Truthful Words] of Maulana Bhasani specialised in preaching that during the period of Awami League rule India looted from Bangladesh a larger amount of resources than the British did in course of 200 years... No opposition party had the honesty to praise India for accelerating the liberation of Bangladesh, and for repairing, at the request of the Awami League government, hundreds of bridges and culverts with extraordinary rapidity... Nor did any opposition party register appreciation for withdrawal of Indian troops from Bangladesh in less than three months...
Mamoon and Ray,
Another bone of contention for these critics was the increasing level of smuggling by neighbouring Indian civilians which resulted from the Sheikh Mujib government's controversial decision to adopt the Indian rupee as an acceptable form of currency within the country even though the 'taka' was in circulation.
By this time Bangladesh was facing a new menace that had almost crippled its already fragile economy. It was smuggling. Tony Hagen, then head of the UN Relief Operation to Dhaka, aptly described the situation to the Sunday Times "Bangladesh is like a bridge suspended in India". Some unscrupulous businessmen and officials smuggled, almost all they could, to the neighbouring country.
According to some reports the smuggling of goods across the border during the first three years cost the country's economy about Tk. 60,000 million. The goods that were smuggled were mostly food-grains, jute and materials imported from abroad. In fact by December 1973, the economy was completely bankrupt, and about 2-billion US dollars of international aid had already been injected to the country's economy.
Some of these "unscrupulous businessmen and office bearers" were Awami Leaguers; and though, the whole party was in no way collectively responsible for the smuggling, Nafia Din (a student of Dhaka University) believes, "Some of their involvement in smuggling and the '25-years treaty' with India gave the Awami League a pro-India label".
Ahmed Hussain, journalist
Sheikh Mujib responded to these criticism by attending in 1974 a summit of Islamic countries held in Lahore and visiting Washington. The visit to Lahore resulted in Pakistan officially recognising Bangladesh as an independent country, three years after its massacre.
Perceived lack of Islam
The army officers were also not in favour of Sheikh Mujib's effort to restrict the role of Islam in national affairs by relegating it to a position of minimal importance. By proclaiming the four fundamental principles of "nationalism, secularism, democracy and socialism", which would come to be known as "Mujibad" (Mujibism), Sheikh Mujib hoped to appeal to the international audience and maintain the goodwill gesture with neighbouring India. Religious-oriented political parties were banned.
However, the people of Bangladesh have a strong attachment to Islam - a fact acknowledged by all rulers and opposition parties who dare criticise Islamic practice and belief at their own risk. In a country where over 90% of the population are Muslim and the belief in Islam is very strong, Sheikh Mujib's commitment to secularism, or non-religion, were disturbing for the intellectuals. Even the leftist secular political parties which consider religion to be an instrument of exploitation, do not make anti-Islamic statement in public.
Government announcement are often sprinkled with references to the establishment of Islamic values, and policies are determined in such a way as not to disturb this sensitive issue.
Ahmed Shafiqul Haque & Muhammad Yeahia Akhter, authors of 'The Ubiquity of Islam: Relgion and society in Bangladesh'
Sheikh Mujib did nevertheless move more closer to Islam through state policies and personal conduct during his later years in power. He revived the Islamic Academy (now Islamic Foundation Bangladesh) (which had been banned in 1972 for suspected collusion with Pakistani forces) and banned the production and sale of alcohol and the practice of gambling, which had been one of the major demands of Islamic groups. Sheikh Mujib also sought Bangladesh's membership in the
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the
Islamic Development Bank and made a significant trip to Lahore, Pakistan in 22 February 1974 to attend the OIC summit, where Pakistan officially acknowledged the independence of Bangladesh.
In his public appearances and speeches, Sheikh Mujib made increased usage of Islamic greetings, slogans and references to Islamic ideologies.
In his final years, Sheikh Mujib largely abandoned his trademark "Joi Bangla" (Glory to Bengal) salutation for "Khuda Hafez" (May Allah protect you) preferred by religious Muslims.
He also declared a common amnesty to the suspected war criminals in some conditions to get the support of far right groups as the communists were not happy with Sheikh Mujib's regime.
I believe that the brokers, who assisted the Pakistanis during the liberation war has realized their faults. I hope they will involve themselves in the development of the country forgetting all their misdeeds.
Those who were arrested and jailed in the Collaborator act should be freed before the 16 December 1974.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Rashtopoti
'Shame' and heartbreak of Bangladesh famine of 1974
The Bangladesh famine of 1974 was a major source of discontent against Sheikh Mujib's government as the Bangladeshi people felt ashamed, insulted and demoralised as a nation for this famine that was not due to a food crisis but, according to Nobel Prize winning Bengali economist Amartya Sen, due instead to the
lack of proper governance and democratic practices.
Independence had become an agony for the people of this country. Stand on the street and you see purposeless, spiritless, lifeless faces going through the mechanics of life. Generally, after a liberation war, the new spirit carries through and the country builds itself out of nothing. In Bangladesh the story is simply the other way round..
The whole of Bangladesh is either begging or singing sad songs or shouting without awareness. The hungry and poor are totally lost.
Colonel Ziauddin's observation of socio-economic decline of Bangladesh post-independence
His [Sheikh Mujib's] famine relief effort was poorly conceived and executed. Among the more odious aspects of the relief program was the herding of 50,000 Bangladeshi destitutes who had migrated to Dhaka into a camp bordered by a barbed wire fence and bereft of any medical or sanitation facilities. One unfortunate resident told a visiting journalist, perhaps mistaking him for an aid worker, "Either feed us or shoot us".
Alex Counts, author of "Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance are changing the world" (2008)
Mukti Bahini favoured over trained army officers
Bangladesh army officers who fought during Muktijuddho were highly trained personnel and they expected to be absorbed in a regular and disciplined military force post independence. These army officers were skilled and experienced individuals who received their training in Pakistan in British tradition of strict military professionalism (pre-independence, when Bangladesh was East Pakistan) and believed in loyalty to country first. The idea of serving an individual rather than an institution was deplorable to them and against their core belief system.
However, Sheikh Mujib had growing fondness for the peasants and ordinary men who made up the Mukti Bahini and risked their lives for the cause of Bangladesh. He favoured them by giving appointments to his civil government and especially in the new Bangladesh Army which was made up of over 50% of these guerrilla fighters, who were viewed as '
undisciplined and politicized element in the military' by former army officers.
Most army officers were denied their expected posts and some of them were denied promotions throughout the rest of Sheikh Mujib's regime. The army officers viewed this as a breach of discipline and threat to the integrity of the military and felt no personal loyalty to Sheikh Mujib.
Ex-army officers were restricted to basic tasks such as disarming the civilians and taming Sheikh Mujib's political opponents, and assigned to functionless jobs as "
Officers on special duty". These acts of Sheikh Mujib created enough discontent among the repatriated officers. There were always fears for coup in the military.
During and after the War of Liberation, many unknown personalities became war heroes out of the blue. Ironically, mere fighting bravely and selflessly for the liberation of the country was not enough but identifiable political affiliation was a must to get recognition. Obviously many war veteran freedom fighters became dejected and frustrated.
Amin Ahmed Chowdhury, Bir Bikram, a fredom fighter, is a retired Major General and former ambassador of Bangladesh
But for the Prime Minister everything was work in progress. The mammoth task of rebuilding a broken nation would take time. It was not something that was going to be fixed overnight. And he was the best person to do it.
Do not forget I have had only three years as a free government. You cannot expect miracles.
Sheikh Mujib reminds his critic
Turning a blind eye to staunch Awami Leaguers' misdemeanours
Many army officers experienced increasing political interference whenever action was taken against Awami Leaguers during their police-keeping operation. Hundreds of people were arrested by them for smuggling, hoarding and intimidation and murder. However, after a telephone call from Dhaka to the local police, charges were quietly dropped against the most prominent of these men and they were allowed to go free.
The police had no option, the criminal's'ustad' was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
If that wasn't bad enough, the officers were warned that they'd be solely responsible for the people they arrested and non of their seniors would be held accountable.
Even Syed Farook Rahman, the man who masterminded Sheikh Mujib's assassination, claimed that he received a general order in writing informing him that should he arrest anyone he would be acting on his own responsibility and that his regimental commanding officer and brigade commander would not be answerable if anything went wrong.
At the same time Farook and the officers were being told to have no mercy on the opposition, particularly Naxalites (Maoists) and other leftists who got caught in the army's net. The order came straight from the top - which invariably meant Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
However, Farook in particular refused to comply with these orders so whenever he caught one of these men he'd quietly let him go.
It was a damned awkward situation. Every time we caught a chap he turned out to be either an Awami Leaguer or a very staunch Awami League supporter. They were getting protection from the top and we were getting a shelling for doing our job.
None of the senior commanders would accept responsibility because the Prime Minister had said 'If you take any funny action you will be hanged for it'. It meant that we were supposed to root out corruption and malpractices, but we were supposed to stop short of the Awami League. The whole thing was a damn farce.
I was given orders to beat them [i.e. leftists] up, get information from them and then throw them in the river. Colonel Shafaat Jamil (then Brigade Commander Dhaka) said they were vermin and must be destroyed. As far as Sheikh Mujib was concerned the indirect orders to us were for leftists like Siraj Sikder and Colonel Ziauddin and such groups, if we catch them to kill them. I was not deeply interested in Marxists but what impressed me was that these chaps did care for the country. They may have gone the wrong way ideologically but they had not so far done wrong to the country.
Farook on the power abuse by section of Awami League loyalist and the hierarchy, including Sheikh Mujib
Rumours of 'Sheikh dynasty' and 'Sheikdom'
An escalating law and order situation, warring factions and poor social and economic condition saw many of Government's major support groups become antagonistic to the regime.
By now rumours spread all over Bangladesh that Sheikh Mujib was building a personal political dynasty – "Sheikhdom". Critics accused him of nepotism and appointing incompetent members of his family to prominent role and turning a blind eye to their flaws and mischief.
Sheikh Mujib's only brother, Sheikh Abdul Nasser, became the
largest contractor in Khulna in 1975 from a "position of near poverty" in 1972. The husband of one of Mujib's sisters, A.T.M. Syed Hossain, who was only a section officer in the secretariat in 1970, became joint secretary in 1972 and, three years later, additional secretary of the Establishment Division, the division which is entrusted with responsibility for appointments, promotions and transfers of civil servants. The husband of another sister of Mujib, Abdur Rab Serniabat, was made a minister in the cabinet. Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni, Sheikh Mujib’s baghna (sister’s son, i.e. a nephew), commonly known as "the nephew of the nation", rose from the position of a newspaper reporter before liberation to Editor of the Bangladesh Times and head of the National Jubo (youth) League. At the age of 24, Sheikh Shahidul Islam, son of Mujib’s fourth sister, was given the rank of minister in the government of 1975. Sheikh Kamal, Mujib’s eldest son, was
reputed to have been involved in a bank robbery and a number of corrupt activities. Sheikh Jamal, Mujib's second son, was sent to the world famous Sandhurst in England at the age of 20 for military training so that after the completion of the training he could take a leading role in what Sheikh Mujib termed
"my army".
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- Sheikh Kamal(1949 - 1975) Eldest son of Sheikh Mujib. Founder of Abahani Krira Chakra.
- Sheikh Jamal(1954 - 1975) Second son of Sheikh Mujib. While being under house arrest with his mother in July, 1971, he fled to free zone and participated in liberation war
- Abdur Rab Serniabat(1927 - 1975) Brother-in-law of Sheikh Mujib. Husband of Sheikh Mujib's third sister Amena Begum. Appointed minster of Water Resources in 1973 by Sheikh Mujib. Born in Chaitra, Barisal.
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- Sheikh Fazlul Haque Moni(1939 - 1975) Baghna(nephew) of Sheikh Mujib from his elder sister. Founder of Awami Jubo League
The people who hurt Mujib's image most were his two sons – Sheikh Kamal and Sheikh Jamal – and Mujib's own wife. Kamal, a student at Dhaka University in the 1970s, unsuccessfully tried his hand at business after graduation. He was eventually elevated by his father to the post of secretary of the Bangladesh Sports Federation. While participating in a number of alleged robberies, Kamal suffered bullet wounds, which his friends knew about and which Mujib and his physician tried vainly to conceal from the public.
The worst reputation by far of any of Mujib’s relatives was enjoyed by Mujib’s nephew (the son of another of Mujib’s four sister), Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni , commonly called the "nephew of the nation”. Moni, 36 when he was killed in the l975 coup, graduated from Dhaka University in l960 with a third class B.A. in political science. He joined the ranks of the educated unemployed for a number of years before securing the job of a newspaper reporter at a salary of Take 275 (about $55) in l970. After the liberation, he built a network of youth organizations as head of his uncle's National Jubo League, and his henchmen were allowed to carry arms despite the fact that Mujib was demanding the surrender of arms from all of the militant groups that fought the Pakistanis during the Liberation War. By becoming editor of the government-run English language newspaper, the Bangladesh Times, and through his ownership of a number of magazines, Moni wielded real power in the opinion-building elite of the country. He also controlled a number of agencies and firms that imported relief goods into Bangladesh; this alone enabled him to amass personal wealth, including a number of automobiles and homes in Dhaka and elsewhere.
The most talented young relative of Mujib was a second nephew, Sheikh Shahidul Islam, who was put in charge of Mujib's Student League. At age 24, Shahid was already a ranking Awami Leaguer and was well-connected with a number of private enterprises as their director. Shahidul Islam was different from Mujib’s other relatives because he had been a brilliant student, having received a first class in chemistry from Dhaka University in his B.A. honours examination. But his reputation was gravely tarnished by persistent rumours that he was involved in a series of bank robberies with his cousins, Mujib’s sons, as well as in the 1974 killings of seven Dhaka University students in one of the dormitories. Rumours were also circulated that Shahidul Islam’s marriage to the daughter of M. Saleheen, who was a managing director of a bank and who came from an established, upper-middle class Bangladeshi family, was a result of pressure applied by Mujib himself when Saleheen proved reluctant about the marriage.
All men, except A. T. M. Syed Hossain and Sheikh Shahidul Islam, were murdered simultaneously on 15 August 1975. The killers had banked on the unspoken negativity that were felt by the majority towards the "Sheikh dynasty" and were confident that there wouldn't be any widespread reaction which they couldn't control and manage. Just as importantly, the two biggest opposition to the Mujib regime came from the leftist parties Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) – more popularly known as 'Jashod' – and the Sarbohara Party, who were both becoming more and more aggressive with each passing year.
It is significant that while Mujib was building the Sheikh dynasty, alienating his major support groups in the process, opposition political parties became very active. Among the opposition political parties, the two revolutionary parties – the Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) and the Sarbohara Party – provided strong opposition to the Mujib regime . In this vulnerable situation of the Awami League, any army coup was expected to be successful. The majors who planned the coup counted on the support of all the alienated groups dismayed by Mujib’s second revolution.
http://www.londoni.co/index.php/history-of-bangladesh?id=395
Bangladesh: The execution of Mujibur Rahman’s killers
By Wije Dias
17 February 2010
Five former army officers convicted of murdering Bangladesh’s first prime minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in August 1975 were hanged on January 28 in the Dhaka central jail. Two days later, his daughter Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the current prime minister, told a rally of 10,000 activists from the ruling Awami League that the executions had “rid [the country] of the curse for the assassination of its founding father”.
Amid waning support for her government, Hasina cynically exploited the hangings to exhort supporters to strengthen the Awami League. She spoke not only of her personal “satisfaction” at the event but declared, “it is a great job for her government”. She called on party activists to sacrifice in “the spirit of Bangabandu”—Friend of Bengal, as her father was known.
Since Bangladesh was formed nearly 40 years ago as a breakaway from Pakistan, none of the country’s immense economic and social problems has been resolved. Bangladesh remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with an annual per capita GDP of just $450. An estimated 40 percent of the population lives below the official poverty line. The global financial crisis has impacted on the country’s garment exports, leading to factory closures and rising unemployment.
The history of the country is testimony to the organic incapacity of the national bourgeoisie to meet the social needs and democratic aspirations of working people. To boost her political standing, Hasina now seeks to paint a glorious past for her father and the Awami League. But it was the failure of Mujibur Rahman to address the problems confronting the masses and his increasingly anti-democratic methods of rule that were used as a pretext for the 1975 military coup and his own murder.
Before 1971, Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan. It was separated from West Pakistan and the Pakistani capital of Islamabad by more than 1,500 kilometres of Indian territory. This irrational arrangement was product of the reactionary communal partition of India worked out in 1947 between Britain and the political representatives of the Indian bourgeoisie to abort the independence movement that was convulsing the subcontinent.
The newly independent states of Hindu-dominated India and Muslim Pakistan were based on arbitrary borders that divided Punjab in the west and Bengal in the east. The partition led to violence that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. A proposal to form three states, including an independent Bengal in the east, was opposed by the Indian National Congress, which insisted that the predominantly Hindu areas of Bengal, including the major city of Calcutta, had to be part of India.
Only the Trotskyists of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India (BLPI) opposed the partition of India and fought to unify workers throughout the subcontinent on a socialist perspective. In March 1948, when he was a Marxist, BLPI leader Colvin R. de Silva, addressing the All Bengali Student Federation in Calcutta in March 1948, made the following far-sighted warning:
“The tragedy of the partition flows particularly from the declared objects of its architects. This gruesome cutting up of the living body of India on the one hand and two living ‘nationalities’ (the Punjabi and the Bengali nationalities) on the other was put forward as a
solution of the communal problem on the one side and as a means of opening the road to freedom on the other. Both pleas have proven false. Partition has proven in one respect only a means of re-forging chains for imperialist enslavement of the masses (as we shall see). In the other respect, it has proved but a means of beguiling two states to thoughts of mutual war as the only means of canalising internal communal feeling away from civil convulsions.”
The speech was made as the first of three wars between India and Pakistan unfolded over Kashmir.
Political friction between the eastern and western wings of Pakistan emerged almost immediately over the issue of the state language. While the Bengali speakers in East Pakistan formed the majority of the country’s population, the ruling elites in West Pakistan insisted that Urdu should be the only state language. A widespread movement calling for Bengali to have equal status with Urdu emerged in East Pakistan. Strikes and protests came to a head in February 1952 when the government cracked down on a demonstration in Dhaka, killing five people and injuring many more.
The Bengali language movement was the precursor to the formation of the Awami Muslim League, later renamed the Awami League. In addition to the language issue, the party called for greater autonomy and economic emancipation for East Pakistan, reflecting concerns in the local ruling elites that they were being marginalised. The bulk of the state bureaucracy and armed forces were drawn from West Pakistan, which was also favoured in state investment and funding. As explosive political and social tensions built within and between the two wings of Pakistan, the military under commander-in-chief Ayub Khan seized power in 1958.
From the late 1960s, South Asia was convulsed by political crises and social struggles—part of an international wave of upheavals associated with the break-up of the post-World War II economic boom. In 1968-69, a new wave of political unrest, including mass strikes and student protests, in Pakistan compelled Ayub Khan to step down. He was replaced by the army commander-in-chief, General Yahya Khan, who ended the ban on political activities and announced a national election, which took place in December 1970. The Awami League won all but 2 of the 162 seats allotted to East Pakistan in the 300-seat National Assembly and the prospect of Sheik Mujiber Rahman forming the national government provoked a political crisis in the Islamabad establishment and the military.
When efforts to reach a compromise failed, Yahya Khan ordered a brutal military crackdown in March 1971 that provoked an armed rebellion and the exodus of more than 1.5 million refugees into neighbouring India. Around 100,000 Mukti Bahini or freedom fighters, assisted by India, battled the Pakistani army to a standstill in the ensuing months. In December 1971, the Indian government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi seized on Pakistani air raids on India as the pretext for a full-scale invasion of East Pakistan.
The Indian intervention was not to defend the democratic rights of East Pakistanis. It was aimed above all at controlling the radicalised independence movement that threatened to spill over the border into India, triggering demands for a unified, independent Bengal. Sections of the Mukti Bahini and their supporters were already moving beyond the control of the conservative Awami League leadership.
Across the border, the Indian state of West Bengal had been shaken by mounting social struggles, involving workers, peasants and students since the mid-1960s. In the year preceding the outbreak of the Bangladesh war, the Gandhi government intervened in West Bengal to precipitate the collapse of a coalition government in which the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was the largest partner, later placing the state under presidential or central government rule.
In East Pakistan, the Indian military rapidly routed the Pakistani army. In January 1972, Mujiber Rahman was released from a Pakistani prison and returned to head the newly independent Bangladesh. However, the new nation, cut off not only from its western counterpart in Pakistan but also from India, where half the Bengali people lived, quickly ran into insurmountable economic and social crises.
The country was devastated by the war. The state apparatus was in tatters following an exodus of Pakistani officials and soldiers. By 1973, agricultural and industrial production stood at just 84 and 66 percent of their pre-war levels. In 1974, the country was hit by a devastating famine that by one estimate claimed nearly 1.5 million lives.
Bangladesh confronted a hostile US, which viewed the country’s ties with India and the non-aligned movement, as well as the Awami League’s socialistic rhetoric, with suspicion. In the midst of the 1974 famine, the US imposed an embargo on food aid as retaliation for the export of a jute consignment to Cuba worth just $5 million. The Awami League, which represented the emerging Bangladeshi bourgeoisie, further inflamed popular anger by failing to carry out its promised land reform, its corrupt management of so-called nationalised industries and its extortion and thuggery.
As political opposition mounted, Mujibur Rahman proclaimed a state of emergency in December 1974 and suspended all fundamental constitutional rights. In early 1975, he sought to consolidate his rule by establishing a one-party presidential system with himself as head of state. Resentment within the army over Awami League corruption and Mujibur’s ties with India boiled over in a coup by junior officers later that year. The president, his wife, sons and daughters-in-law were murdered on August 15, 1975. His two daughters, including the current prime minister, were in Germany at the time.
The fate of the killers was bound up with that of the regimes that followed. The short-lived government of Mushtaque Ahmed issued an Indemnity Ordinance granting immunity to Mujiber’s assassins. The military dictatorships that followed led by Lieutenant General Ziaur Rahman (Zia) and Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad made no attempt to overturn the ordinance. After Ershad’s fall, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the party founded by Zia and led by his widow Khaleda Zia, won national elections in 1991 but made no attempt to bring Mujibur’s killers to justice.
After the Awami League came to power in 1996 Sheik Hasina scrapped the Indemnity Ordinance and paved the way for the trial of her father’s assassins. A Dhaka court convicted and imposed death sentences on 15 individuals in 1998, three of whom were later acquitted by a high court. But the legal processes were disrupted by the Awami League’s loss of office in 2001 and only resumed after it won in a landslide victory in 2008. In addition to the five executed last month, six others are living abroad and one died in exile in Libya.
The Awami League’s efforts to use the executions to promote the glories of Bangladesh’s founding father are a crude attempt to deflect attention from the economic and social crisis confronting the masses. The dead end of Bangladeshi nationalism underscores the bankruptcy of bourgeois separatist movements throughout the subcontinent. They seek to redraw the patchwork of states created by the 1947 partition to favour local and regional ruling elites. Nearly 40 years after Bangladesh was formed and more than 60 years after the subcontinent’s partition, the program advanced by the BLPI, and today by the Socialist Equality Party, offers the only road forward: a political struggle to unify workers throughout the subcontinent and internationally around a socialist perspective.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/02/bang-f17.html
BNP demands fresh investigation into the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Senior Correspondent, bdnews24.com
Published: 2015-08-18 22:47:48.0 BdST Updated: 2015-08-18 23:23:26.0 BdST
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Press briefing at BNP's Naya Paltan headquarters
The BNP has demanded a fresh investigation into the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman which has been tried.
Five persons had already been executed over the killing of Bangladesh’s founding father.
BNP spokesperson Asaduzzaman Ripon raised the demand on Tuesday following the comments of Sheikh Mujib’s nephew and Awami League leader Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, MP, and former army chief KM Shafiullah in a TV talk show.
“It can be assumed from those conversations between the two leaders that the then army chief KM Shafiullah was linked to the assassination. A responsible leader of the party like Sheikh Fazlul Karim made the allegation,” Ripon said.
“This is a serious allegation. (We demand that) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination be investigated again,” he said.
The BNP leader said Shafiullah’s role in the assassination, as was alleged by Selim, could be verified if the case was reinvestigated.
“He who made the allegation is a presidium member of the ruling party, the nephew of the assassinated president. It’s not a matter to be taken lightly,” he added.
After the murder of Sheikh Mujib along with most members of his family on Aug 15, 1975, the Constitution was changed to indemnify the self-proclaimed killers.
The Awami League repealed it when it came to power in 1996 after 21 years.
A case was filed subsequently and the trial court sentenced 15 accused to death. The Supreme Court upheld the capital punishment of 12, all former army officers.
Five of them - Syed Faruque Rahman, Sultan Shahariar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, Mohiuddin Ahmed and AKM Mohiuddin – were executed in 2010. Others are absconding.
Former Chhatra Dal leader Ripon said, “We think that many involved in the Aug 15 incident escaped trial. Now new information has emerged against the then army chief.
“So I’ll ask the government to start a reinvestigation from within its own party.”
Citing media reports and books on the carnage, he said ministers of the then Awami League government knew about it beforehand.
“Why were the leaders silent at the time? Why were the Rakkhi Bahini and its chief Tofail Ahmed silent? His role should be investigated,” Ripon said.
"I hope the government will give due importance to our observation,” he added.
Awami League leaders blame the then deputy chief of army Ziaur Rahman, who subsequently rose to the helm of power and founded the BNP, for the murder.
Ripon, however, denied the allegation of Zia’s involvement in the murder.
“Many give false and imaginary information implicating our party founder Ziaur Rahman to defame him. Ziaur Rahman did not believe in the politics of killings.
“He was a disciplined officer during his service. The then deputy chief of army did not have any command. The government did away with the post as it had no importance,” he said.
“But they do not attack or blame the then army chief of general staff Khaled Mosharraf, 44 Brigade chief Shafayet Jamil and others. It was Khaled Mosharraf who incarcerated the army chief to take the charge by breaking the army’s chain of command at the time (Nov 4, 1975).
“He (Khaled Mosharraf) helped whoever was accused of the killing, Faruque, Rashid, everyone, to go abroad,” Ripon said.
Zia, a sector commander of the Liberation War, allegedly killed many freedom fighter army officials in court martial.
One of the victims was Col Md Abu Taher.
The High Court in a verdict over his death said ‘Zia murdered Taher cold-bloodedly’ in the name of court martial.
http://bdnews24.com/politics/2015/0...sination-of-bangabandhu-sheikh-mujibur-rahman
