Jail Killing Day Today: 51 Years Since the Four National Leaders Were Killed in Prison, 10 of 11 Convicts Still Fugitive

Today, 3 November, is Jail Killing Day. The day in 1975 remains a mournful one in Bangladesh's history. On that day, in the darkness of night inside Dhaka Central Jail, Syed Nazrul Islam, acting president of the wartime Mujibnagar government, Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmad, cabinet member Captain M Mansur Ali and A H M Kamaruzzaman were killed while in prison custody.

Two and a half months earlier, on 15 August of the same year, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the principal leader of Bangladesh's independence and then president, was killed along with his family. After that assassination, these four close associates of Bangabandhu were arrested and sent to prison.

Amid a chain of conspiracies and successive seizures of power, the four national leaders were killed in prison in the darkness of night, 51 years ago today.

Over the killing of the four national leaders, the then deputy inspector general of prisons, Kazi Abdul Awal, filed a murder case at Lalbagh police station on 4 November 1975. The case came to be known as the ‘Jail Killing case’.

The investigation of the case then remained stalled for 21 years. Proceedings began after the Awami League returned to power in June 1996.

Twenty-nine years after the killings, Dhaka's Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court delivered the verdict in the case on 20 October 2004.

Under the verdict, eight convicts received life imprisonment and three received the death penalty. Of these 11 convicts, 10 remain beyond reach. Only one death sentence has been carried out.

Among the life-sentenced convicts, Captain (dismissed) Abdul Majed remained a fugitive for a long time. He was also sentenced to death in the Bangabandhu killing case. He was arrested in April 2020 after returning to the country, and his execution was carried out in the same month.