Published : 15 Aug 2021, 06:16 PM
When Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, his family members, and his close relatives were brutally murdered by a few serving and retired officers of the Bangladesh Army and their loyal troops on Aug 15, 1975, the presidency was assumed by then commerce and foreign trade minister Khandakar Mushtaque Ahmed. In his first radio broadcast to the nation on that day, Mushtaque said he taken on the role of the president out of a "historical necessity". He also said that the "armed forces had come forward to change the government, and by performing their duty with utmost sincerity, they had opened a golden gate of opportunity for their countrymen". Although only members of two army units attacked the residences of Bangabandhu and his relatives, Mushtaque explicitly attributed the responsibility for changing the government through the inhuman killings of the Father of the Nation and his family members, including women and children, to the armed forces of the country.
But no protest came from the armed forces after Mostaq's speech. On the contrary, the chiefs of staff of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force went to the radio station and pledged their allegiance to Mushtaque who had assumed the presidency without any legitimate authority. The DG of the Bangladesh Rifles, the IG of police, and the acting director of the Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini also swore their allegiance to Mostaq. It is unlikely that only a handful of army officers and some soldiers faithful to them suddenly carried out vicious attacks on the residences of Bangabandhu and his relatives and murdered them mercilessly. But, nearly 50 years since the Aug 15 killings, many questions remain unresolved and it can hardly be claimed that all of the forces and individuals involved in the conspiracy to overthrow Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman have been exposed.
The crucial question is: if certain powerful forces, both at home and abroad, had taken part in the plot to assassinate Bangabandhu, why did the entire armed forces of the country remain unwilling on Aug 15 to confront the officers and the loyal troops responsible for the murders of Bangabandhu and his relatives? The killers had all the T-54 tanks of the army in their possession. But that does not justify the appalling failure of the armed forces to deal with the rebels on that day because the tanks did not have any gun ammunition. The officers in the most important positions of the army knew that all gun ammunition of the tanks were kept at the Ordnance Depot at Joydebpur, and without their permission, it was not possible for the tank regiment officers to get that ammunition.
The Air Force also had jet fighters that could be used effectively against the tanks. Yet, the top brass of the armed forces did not deal with the two army units – the 1st Bengal Lancers and the 2nd Field Artillery – that broke the army chain of command and organised the mission to kill the president of the country. In later years, the-then Army Chief Major General KM Safiullah and the-then Dhaka Brigade Commander Colonel Shafaat Jamil blamed each other for the failure to take immediate action against the killers of Bangabandhu on Aug 15, 1975. They also gave contradictory information as to the official order to provide the tanks with the gun ammunition after the killing of Bangabandhu.
For General Safiullah, the-then chief of general staff (CGS) of the army, Brigadier Khaled Mosharraf issued gun ammunition to the rebel tank regiment without the permission of the army chief. In contrast, Colonel Shafaat Jamil said that General Safiullah himself phoned the CGS from the Bangabhaban around 12 pm on Aug 15 and ordered him to issue gun ammunition to the tanks. Because of such contrasting statements from two senior officers holding key positions in the army in 1975, it is difficult to know what actually happened on that day. The then Deputy Chief of the Army Major General Ziaur Rahman seemed unperturbed and quiet on Aug 15. After nine days, Mostaq appointed General Zia as the army chief to replace General Safiullah. Major Faruque Rahman, the then second-in-command of the tank regiment and one of the main persons involved in planning and conducting the attacks on Aug 15 said in a video interview taken by Pakistani journalist Anthony Mascarenhas that in March 1975 he informed General Zia of their intention to depose Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. According to Faruque, General Zia told him that, as a senior officer he could not be involved in a plan like this, but if the junior officers wanted to do this, they could go ahead.
In one of his books, Anthony Mascarenhas writes that in July 1976 he asked General Zia about Faruque's claim, but Zia neither confirmed nor denied it. After the murder of Bangabandhu, the insistence of the junior officers involved in the killings regarding General Zia's appointment as the army chief also suggests their reliance on General Zia. But another important question is how two majors – Faruque Rahman and then Commanding Officer of the 2nd Field Artillery Regiment Abdur Rashid – could hatch a plot to remove the president without arousing suspicion? Did the intelligence units of the army and other government organisations fail to discover the plot or was information concerning the conspiracy deliberately concealed by certain individuals and groups?
On May 15, 1974, the-then US Ambassador to Bangladesh Davis Eugene Boster mentioned in a secret report sent to the US State Department that two days prior, without making an appointment, Major Faruque Rahman met William F Gresham, a public relations official of the US Embassy in Dhaka and wanted to know what the US government's attitude would be toward an attempt to overthrow the government in Bangladesh. Major Faruque did not hesitate to mention this plan for a military coup to a foreign embassy official in 1974. In the US secretary of state staff meeting held on Aug 15, 1975, American diplomat Alfred Atherton mentioned that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had been informed by the US administration in March 1975 of a plot against him. But, according to Atherton, Bangabandhu "brushed it off, scoffed at it, said nobody would do a thing like that to him." The officials of India's external intelligence agency also claimed that they had forewarned Bangabandhu of a plot to assassinate him. But according to them, Bangabandhu did not pay attention to such intelligence.
The decision to attack the residences of Bangabandhu and others on Aug 15 makes us think that the conspirators chose that day carefully. Bangabandhu was scheduled to visit Dhaka University that day. The members of the police and Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini were busy tightening security around the Dhaka University campus for the president's visit. Brigadier Nuruzzaman, the director of the Rakkhi Bahini was not in the country at that time. Colonel Mash-hoor-ul Haque had just become the military secretary to the President and Bangabandhu's previous military secretary, Colonel Jamil Uddin Ahmad, was posted to the DGFI as its chief. He was about to take charge of the DGFI from outgoing Chief Brigadier Rouf. Colonel Jamil was also the chief security officer of Bangabandhu and he was in the process of transferring this responsibility to the newly-appointed Chief Security Officer Lieutenant Colonel Harun Ahmed Chowdhury. So, the conspirators decided to strike at a time when the Rakkhi Bahini Chief was abroad and some other officers were not yet accustomed to their new positions.
Major Abdur Rashid joined the Liberation War in October 1971 and served in an artillery unit under the Z Force. From the beginning of 1971, Major Faruque Rahman was posted in Abu Dhabi on deputation from Pakistan Army to serve with the Abu Dhabi armed forces. Although it was not difficult for him to leave Abu Dhabi, he came to join the Liberation War just a few days before Dec 16. Therefore, he was not considered a freedom fighter and consequently was not given two years of antedated seniority. After liberation, his feelings of hostility towards the Soviet-India bloc, as well as the ruling Awami League, became evident. It is also known that on two occasions before 1975 he tried to mount a coup using the tanks, and the senior officers of the army were aware of this. Yet, instead of arresting Major Faruque, the army authorities kept him in the tank regiment as the second-in-command. When Major Rashid returned from India after completing a gunnery staff course, he had automatically been posted to the Gunnery School in Jashore. But his transfer to Jashore was cancelled and he was posted as the commanding officer of the artillery regiment based in Dhaka Cantonment under the 46 Brigade. Due to their Dhaka Cantonment postings, Faruque and Rashid could easily organise their conspiracy to conduct a coup using the tanks and artillery guns.
Thus, the role of the-then military high-ups before Aug 15 killings and their complete lack of interest in organising an immediate and strong retaliation against the officers and soldiers who attacked and ruthlessly murdered the president of the country and his family members raise questions and deserve severe condemnation. We should remember the courage and dedication to duty shown by Colonel Jamil Uddin Ahmed on Aug 15. After receiving the phone call from Bangabandhu at dawn, Colonel Jamil did not hesitate to rush to the residence to save him from danger. The presence of the rebel soldiers and the sound of gunfire did not deter him from driving towards Dhanmondi Road 32 alone. There he was shot dead by the rebels. This brave officer died a tragic death – but he had not failed to perform his moral and professional duty. Unfortunately, on Aug 15, 1975, the other officers holding powerful positions in the armed forces and Rakkhi Bahini seemed totally oblivious of their professional and moral responsibility to courageously resist these murderers and bring them to justice. Their deplorable inaction only brought tragic and dire consequences for our country in the following years.