Dhaka: Five former police officials were sentenced to death by a Bangladesh court Monday for opening fire on a motorcade of then Opposition leader Sheikh Hasina in 1988 that killed 24 of her supporters during an anti-government rally.
The court in Bangladesh’s southeastern port city of Chittagong handed down the verdict after the completion of the defence’s argument. Fifty three witnesses testified in the court over the attack on current Prime Minister Hasina’s convoy.
“They will be hanged by neck until they are dead,” pronounced Chattogram District and Sessions Judge Md Ismail Hossain, as four of the five convicts were present in the crowded courtroom while the fifth convict, a former police inspector, was tried in absentia as a fugitive.
The police opened fire January 24, 1988 on a procession which was escorting the motorcade of the then Awami League president Hasina while she was going to address a rally in the port city against the regime of then military dictator HM Ershad.
The attack was seen by Awami League leaders as an ‘attempt to assassinate’ Hasina. The prosecution said Hasina was visibly the target but she survived as her supporters formed a human shield to protect her.
The shooting was dubbed as ‘Chattagram massacre’ when police cremated the bodies at a Hindu crematorium regardless of the victims’ religious identities, giving their families no chance to see them.
The Awami League filed the case in 1992 after Ershad was ousted in a massive pro-democracy mass uprising in 1990, but the proceedings were shelved for years as Hasina’s arch rival Khaleda Zia’s government was unwilling to proceed with the case.
Hasina took office when Zia’s five-year term ended in 1996 and began investigation into the killings.
The police submitted a chargesheet May 14, 1998 against 47 people. Later, the court directed the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) seeking further investigation of the case.
The country’s Criminal Investigations Department charged eight policemen with murder October 14, 1999, but three accused including the then police chief of the port city Mirza Rakibul Huda died as the court proceedings were underway.
PTI