Bharat Bhushan: A hanging in Dhaka, courtesy Delhi

By Dilip -
That Majed stayed as Ahmed Ali in Kolkata for two decades suggests that Indian intelligence agencies probably knew about him and that he may have been under their protection. A good indication of their complicity is the fact that Majed’s presence in Kolkata was not politicised. This is in contrast to the BJP’s high-pitched campaign against Mamata Banerjee in 2014 of harbouring Islamic terrorists

Did India just gift a hanging to Bangladesh in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic? On Sunday April 12, at one minute past midnight former Bangladesh Army Captain Abdul Majed was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail. He was one of the twelve Bangladesh Army officers convicted in the assassination of the founder of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975. They killed more than 20 members of Mujib’s family - only his two daughters, Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana, being out of the country, fortuitously escaped the bloodbath.

Five of the convicts were tried and hanged in Dhaka in January 2010. Another accused died a natural death in hiding, in Zimbabwe. Majed was one of the remaining six convicts. Five still remain at large. Majed was also accused in the killing of four leaders of the Bangladesh freedom movement in Dhaka jail -- two former Prime Ministers, a former Vice President and a former Home Minister.
Reports of Majed’s arrest give conflicting facts. According to Monirul Islam, Chief of Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime unit at Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Majed was arrested on April 7 at Mirpur Sare Egaro Bus Stand in the capital. However, a sub-inspector of the same unit declared in court that the arrest was from Gabtoli Bus Stand, 19 km away. Reports also contradict each other about whether Majed reached Dhaka by air or through the land border. The dates of his arrival also vary.

Majed was apparently hiding in India for nearly two decades. He escaped Bangladesh in 1996 and is said to have lived as a fugitive in West Asia and North Africa before coming to India. It was in 2009-10 that the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina began demanding his return from India. Majed lived in Kolkota under the name of Ahmed Ali in a house on Bedford Lane, off prestigious Park Street. He was known to be pious, offering prayers five times a day and because he tutored children in English he was called “Mastermoshai of English”. He married a widow named Zareena and had a six year old daughter with her. His Bangladeshi wife, Saleha, lives in Dhaka.

Majed aka Ahmed Ali had an Aadhar card and two Indian passports – one (apparently fake) issued in 2007 and another issued on 24 May 2017, an original. Majed apparently left home on February 21 to purchase medicines but never returned. His mobile phone was switched off. His Indian wife, Zareena, filed a ‘missing person’ report with Kolkata police on February 22. CCTV footage examined by the police showed that he was followed by four men who boarded the same bus. He next resurfaced in Dhaka.

The year 1975 was an unusual year in Bangladesh. Sheikh Mujib had been elected president of Bangladesh in June, 1975. He proceeded to abolish all political parties and independent media ostensibly to bring order in the country. He was seen as becoming dictatorial and his one-party ‘national unity government’ of Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League became deeply unpopular because of rampant corruption, misuse of the judiciary, food shortages and a famine. Sheikh Mujib was assassinated in these conditions. Within four years of its spectacular success the Bangladesh revolution had devoured its own children.

The beneficiaries of the coup brought in an Indemnity Act to give immunity from legal action to the assassins. It was brought in as a presidential ordinance by Mujib’s successor and a key conspirator, President Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad and was later passed by Parliament as the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Military dictators who followed him -- Ziaur Rehman and H M Ershad -- extended the law to cover military coups and martial law decrees. The assassins of Mujib were rewarded with promotions and government jobs.

However, when the Awami League swept to power in 1996, Sheikh Hasina scrapped the Indemnity Act paving the way, after two decades, for the trial of the killers of her father. The accused, including Majed, fled Bangladesh. That Majed stayed as Ahmed Ali in Kolkata for two decades suggests that Indian intelligence agencies probably knew about him and that he may have been under their protection. A good indication of their complicity is the fact that Majed’s presence in Kolkata was not politicised. This is in contrast to the BJP’s high-pitched campaign against Mamata Banerjee in 2014 of harbouring Islamic terrorists like Sheikh Rahmatullah of Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, convicted in the Burdwan bomb blast.

Perhaps by eventually facilitating his recovery and repatriation, India was reciprocating Bangladesh’s friendly gesture in handing over top ULFA insurgents nearly nine years ago. More proximately, there was a need to assuage popular anger in Bangladesh over the highlighting of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants (“termites” in the memorable language of then BJP president Amit Shah) in the context of the National Register of Citizens operations in Assam. Sheikh Hasina is facing uncomfortable questions at home over India’s NRC and possible repatriation of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants. India’s recent Citizenship Amendment Act is also premised on the humiliating supposition for Bangladesh that minorities are persecuted there. Handing over a fugitive convicted of her father’s murder would be one way of placating her.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to visit Dhaka on March 17 to witness the roll-out of year-long celebrations marking the birth centenary of the nation’s founding father. It is possible that the timing of his assassin’s hand-over and a quick hanging would have set the stage favourably for the PM’s participation.

Eventually the coronavirus pandemic led Bangladesh to withdraw invitations to world leaders to participate and Prime Minister Modi sent a video message instead. By then, however, Majed’s cover had been blown, a missing person report lodged and Bangladesh perhaps informed about his repatriation. It is understood that Majed was handed over, possibly at the land border crossing of Petrapol – Benapole, days after the March 24 national lockdown. Diplomatic purpose would perhaps have been best served if the entire play was kept undercover. However, unnamed Indian sources chose to tom-tom the botched up repatriation as a major achievement of India-Bangladesh joint intelligence cooperation.
https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/hanging-a-killer-of-sheikh-mujibur-rahman-in-dhaka-courtesy-delhi-120042000112_1.html

see also
Haunted by unification: A Bangladeshi view of partition
An Open Letter to the world on the Bangladesh crisis of 1971
Glory Days, or remembering how Indians love(d) China
Syed Badrul Ahsan - In Dhaka, return of a spectre
Bangladeshi communist writer Shahzahan Bachchu gunned down
Shoaib Daniyal - In Bangladesh, a movement against a statue of Lady Justice reveals the dangers of rising Islamism

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