Death penalty for Sheikh Hasina: When ousted Bangladesh PM's father Mujibur Rahman met a tragic end in 1975

Sheikh Mujib was a popular and charismatic leader in the early 1970s.

Five decades after she survived a midnight coup in which her entire family, including her father and Bangladesh's founding President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was killed, Sheikh Hasina on Monday was sentenced to death.

The International Crimes Tribunal ordered the death penalty to Hasina and two senior aides of committing crimes against humanity during the July 2024 uprising.

Hasina had fled to India last year after her ouster and has since been staying in a secret safe house in New Delhi, her son Sajeeb Wazed earlier said. However, this is not the first time that she has taken refuge in India. In an earlier interview to ANI, Hasina said was once a secret resident of Delhi's posh Pandara Road, where she lived with her children under an assumed identity. Hasina said she was trying to escape the attention of those who assassinated her father Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.

What happened to Mujibur Rehman?

Sheikh Mujib was a popular and charismatic leader in the early 1970s. He spent over 12 years in prison under British and Pakistani rule. Rahman along with Hasina’s mother and three brothers were killed on August 15, 1975.

Revered as “Bangabandhu”, Rahman, who became the first president of independent Bangladesh, was assassinated by a group of Bangladesh Army personnel who stormed his Dhanmondi 32 residence as part of a coup.

After its humiliating defeat in the 1971 Liberation War, Pakistan was reluctant to recognise Bangladesh as an independent nation. Pakistan delayed formal recognition of Bangladesh until 1974 and remained hostile even afterward.

It is said Rahman, the architect of Bangladesh’s independence, became Pakistan’s prime target. Pakistan is believed to have orchestrated a covert plan to eliminate Mujib, working through pro-Pakistan elements within the Bangladesh Army, including officers ideologically aligned with Islamabad.

According to reports, four military units upset with Mujib's government entered Dhaka. The first group targeted his residence, where they killed him after a confrontation and went on to murder all family members and staff present, including a pregnant daughter-in-law.

According to the New York Times quoting Indian press reports from Dacca in 1975, "gunshots were heard shortly after midnight near Sheikh Mujib's residence in Dhanmundi”.

In July 1975, Hasina and her sister Rehana flew to Germany, where the former Bangladesh PM’s husband and physicist, late MA Wazed Miah, was working. Hasina, her husband and children, Sajeeb Wazed and Saima Wazed, and her sister, Rehana, took refuge in India after the massacre.

During her exile in India, she was elected to lead the Awami League in 1981.

In 2020,  Bangladesh  executed one of the killers of Rahman, Abdul Majed, a former military captain. He reportedly hid in India, specifically Kolkata, for many years.