How Sheikh Hasina's Father Mujibur Rahman Narrowly Escaped the Death Sentence Twice
As expected, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), Dhaka has convicted former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina of committing crimes against humanity – specifically, orchestrating the mass killing of protesters; ordering lethal force from the air and ground; murdering specific individuals; hiding evidence by disposing of bodies; and coordinating the persecution and killing of demonstrators in specific areas. Hasina has been sentenced to death. This was a trial in absentia, since Hasina was in India. Predictably, she has denounced the verdict as “biased” and “politically motivated.”
Interestingly, the ICT which has convicted and sentenced her was originally set up by Hasina herself in 2009 to investigate war crimes committed during the 1971 war which led to the creation of Bangladesh. Of course, the judges on the Tribunal were hand-picked by the post-Hasina interim government and there are charges of its being a “rigged” tribunal. But neither this fact nor the fact that the trial was in absentia can detract from the brutality of Hasina’s crackdown in July-August 2024.
The legal flaws of the trial are overshadowed by the magnitude of her well-documented atrocities (including in a report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), which have led to the death sentence she is sure to escape.
This makes one recall two occasions in the past when her father, the late Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, narrowly escaped the death sentence. The first time was in 1968, when Field Marshal Mohammed Ayub Khan was the President of Pakistan. Rahman and 34 others were charged with sedition and an attempt to secede from Pakistan through an armed revolt.
The conspiracy was allegedly hatched in Agartala (All India Radio would coyly refer to it as the “Dhaka conspiracy case”). The trial was before a special tribunal and hearings took place in a secure chamber in the Dhaka Cantonment. Mujibur Rahman was represented by a British lawyer, Thomas Williams, along with local counsel. Williams was a barrister from the UK and had also been an MP from the Labour and Co-operative parties. According to a retelling of the trial, “The government was bent on identifying Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as a separatist and an Indian agent thereby arousing public support against him. But the approvers on the witness-box declared that the government had compelled them by threat and persecution to submit false evidence in its favour.” The Pakistani government’s manipulation of the trial was exposed.
Ultimately, the case was withdrawn in 1969, after one of the accused was shot in custody, and public anger led to protests and violence. Had the trial proceeded, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would have faced a death sentence. Interestingly, in 2010, one of the accused in the case, Shawkat Ali, proclaimed that the conspiracy was real, and that the group wanted to raise an armed revolution to liberate Bangladesh from West Pakistan.
Events in Pakistan moved rapidly after that. Field Marshal Ayub Khan resigned under pressure and handed over power to General Yahya Khan, who imposed martial law and became the military ruler of Pakistan. Martial law led to political instability and rising tensions between West and East Pakistan about political representation and power-sharing.
On December 7, 1970, Pakistan held its first general election on an adult franchise – the only one before the creation of Bangladesh. 300 general seats were split between East (162) and West (138) Pakistan, with 13 additional reserved seats for women. Rahman’s Awami League, the main contender in the East, won in 167 seats – a landslide victory.
The Pakistan Peoples Party, led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, won just 86 seats. But President Yahya Khan did not want the Awami League to form the government and he indefinitely delayed the convening of the National Assembly. This led to protests and renewed feelings of mistreatment by the West, calls for independence, and ultimately to civil war.
In the early hours of March 26, 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested by the Pakistani army from his home in Dhanmondi, Dhaka. A January 1972 report in the New York Times, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sydney H. Schanberg, recounts the fascinating story of his arrest and detention as he told it. He bade farewell to his wife and children, left the house, and was about to get into the jeep, when he stopped and told the soldiers who were escorting him with rifles that he had forgotten his pipe and tobacco, and must go back to get them.
After a few days moving between locations in East Pakistan, he was taken to Rawalpindi where he was kept alternately in prisons at Mianwali, Lyallpur, and Sahiwal. This time, a secret military trial was conducted, on several charges carrying a death penalty, including waging war against Pakistan. He chose to be defended by AK Brohi, a prominent lawyer (who had been Ram Jethmalani’s first partner), but then decided against a rigorous defence.
The trial ended on December 4, 1971. No judgment was officially pronounced, though Rahman was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was moved back to the jail at Mianwali, and a few days later the prison superintendent came to his cell early in the morning. Rahman recounted that prison employees were digging a grave in the compound outside his cell. Anticipating his death, he asked the superintendent to let him say his last prayers if he was going to be executed. But instead he was taken out of the prison, and moved from house to house.
On December 16 Pakistan surrendered. Rahman was taken back to Rawalpindi and placed under house arrest, where he was visited by Bhutto and learned that Bhutto had ensured that he was not executed, for the sake of the West Pakistani soldiers stuck in the East, and his own political popularity. Bhutto kept Rahman in limbo between freedom and detention until January, attempting to persuade him to maintain links between the East and West, until he was finally permitted to leave for London.
On January 10, 1972 he returned to the newly formed Bangladesh, and soon after took over as Prime Minister from Tajuddin Ahmad. It is this Mujib who is sought to be forgotten today in Bangladesh, due mainly to the diabolical deeds of his daughter.
Raju Ramachandran is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India.
Shruti Narayan is an advocate at the Supreme Court of India.
This article went live on November twenty-first, two thousand twenty five, at eighteen minutes past eleven in the morning.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
