The press on August 16 was totally silent about the tragic fate of President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, his funeral and whereabouts. Later it was learnt that, "A major and a lieutenant with some soldiers descended on Tungipara in a helicopter on the morning of 16 August, the day after the killings. They called the 'pesh-Imam' of the village mosque and asked him if the villagers would bury Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Yes, if his body was handed over to them. They wanted the coffin to be lowered in the grave. It was un-Islamic. The villagers were horrified. "We must see the body," the villagers insisted. � It was a tense moment. The officers were in a dilemma. Their instructions were clear: The villagers should not be allowed to see Mujib's body. But Muslims could revolt if a fellow-Muslim was denied an Islamic burial. "Yes," the major said. There would be 'kaffan' and 'daffan', but it had to be done in their presence."
"The coffin was opened. Mujib's body was riddled with bullets and the ice-packed coffin was blood-stained. The villagers stood around the coffin in stunned silence. � Mujib's body was taken to the veranda of his village home. His body had 29 bullet wounds. One bullet, probably from an automatic revolver, had pierced him through the back in a pocket of his 'kurta' where were the pipe and broken pair of spectacles. There was no one in Mujib's village home, and all the shops were closed. Someone brought a piece of washing soap. There was no time to boil water for the last bath. Even before all the blood stains could be removed the major started shouting: "Hurry up. How much more time are you going to take?" Some villagers brought four saris from the hospital named after Saira Khatoon, Mujib's mother. They tore off their borders, but the major wouldn't give them time to stitch the 'kaffan' (shroud). Would there be 'namaz-e-janaza' (funeral prayers before the burial)? Yes, the major said."
"He asked a policeman whether they could join in the prayers. The policeman answered that they could if they were 'clean' (in the religious sense). They did not join the 'namaz-e-janaza'. Mujib was laid to rest by the side of his father's grave (Khatib, 1981, pp-14-15)."
I found a poem on my desk at Bangabhaban on 17 August 1975; it was revealing and time-stricken note, translation from original Bengali.
Fame is like vapour, popularity is an accident,
Wealth flies too, those who flatter, defile tomorrow.
Only character would not malign in the midst of eternal time frame.
Forty one years have passed with agonies and ecstasy since August 1975, but my reminiscence of those days at Bangabhaban is yet alive. But I could not dispel those events. Some of my colleagues ridiculed me. I was then Meher Ali of Tagore's Kshudita Pashan. While I was at Bangabhaban in August 1975, a junior Intelligence officer, out of curiosity, told me "Sir, we went to Tajuddin Saheb's residence on 16 August morning, he was crying profusely, saying "I told you Bangabandhu, they will kill you and we, too, would be."
On 20 August, M Mansoor Ali was brought to Bangabhaban for a close-door talk with Khondaker Mostaq. I sent our PID photographer Mr Alam (later worked in the daily Ittefaq) to get a photograph of the event. Mr Alam told me, "Sir, Mansoor Saheb was roaring with loud voice, "Khondaker saheb you kill me, don't request me to take any post in your cabinet." I found that the officer did not mislead me; Tajuddin's forecast established his farsightedness and leadership. It came to be proved correct on 3 November 1975 while all war-hero-national leaders in Dhaka Central Jail were killed by the killer group of majors as per instructions of foisted president Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad...Khondaker Mostaq constituted a three member judicial inquiry commission on 5 November 1975. Tajuddin definitely deserves not to be rated as just another among many other actors in national history. Tajuddin, who led the liberation war as the head of a helpless government in exile to victory, should now be given his due. But history has a lot more to tell when it comes to treating our heroes. They could escape Dhaka after 16 August, but, it was not happened due to some ironies (?) of history. They became key men in the new regime.
On 3 Nov 1975 the seventy-nine-day-old regime headed by Khondaker Mostaq was overthrown and army-leadership seized power in Bangabhaban from the junior officers who had brought President Khondaker Mostaq to power on 15 August 1975. Four national leaders of Bangladesh, including Prime Minister and the Acting President of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh Tajuddin Ahmad and Syed Nazrul Islam, who steered Bangladesh to freedom and sovereign nation, were assassinated on 3 Nov 1975. The two other assassinated were cabinet ministers A H M Kamaruzzaman and M Mansur Ali. These leaders were killed in the Dhaka Central Jail, where they had been lodged after the 15 August coup.
It may be recalled that on the Morning of November 6, 1975, Khondaker Mostaq resigned and nominated Mr A S M Sayem, Chief Justice of Bangladesh, as the President of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. On 7 November 1975, Zia was proclaimed the CMLA. A new administrative set-up for the running of an interim government was arranged with Justice Sayem as the CMLA and the three service chiefs, Major General Ziaur Rahman, BU, Air Vice Marshal M G Tawab (the Air chief was M K Bashar, who died in a plane accident in May'76) and Rear Admiral M H Khan as Deputy Chief Martial Law Administers (DCMLA). Finally Zia became CMLA on 19 November 1976, when Justice Sayem relinquished his position and ultimately the President of Bangladesh on 21 April 1977, when President Sayem resigned.
After assuming office as head of the state Major-General Ziaur Rahman, Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA) issued a proclamation order amending the Constitution of Bangladesh, framed by elected people's representatives in 1972, to insert Bismillah-ir- Rahmanir Rahim (In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful) and other Islamic principles in the of the Constitution in place of secular ideals, which was subsequently ratified in the form of a fifth amendment of the Constitution in April 1979.
On 6 Nov 1975, Chief Justice of Bangladesh Justice A S M Sayem took over as President of Bangladesh. In his first broadcast over Radio on Nov 6, he said, "On the 15th of August a few retired and serving military officers staged an uprising and killed the then president (Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) and members of his family. Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad assumed the responsibility of president and promulgated Martial Law. In fact, the Armed Forces were in no way involved in this happening." He announced the dissolution of Parliament and holding of elections before Feb 1977.
"DCMLA Admiral M H Khan, DCMLA Air vice Marshal M G Tawab, Information Secretary in charge ATM Shamsul Huq, and Principal Secretary Shafiul Azam were present during the recording of the address. The President, Mr. Justice A S M Sayem started his speech. Suddenly, a cameraman's movement threw out the microphone of the Radio/TV from the president's table. I felt it's an ominous sign. It might be a superstition of an orthodox Brahmin, but the incident helped me come back early to Laxmi Bazar, before the sepoy mutiny started at about 11-30 P.M. on November 6, 1975.
I left Bangabhaban on 6 November 1975 after completion of the text of address of the President Justice ASM Sayem. Tajul Islam, later Press Secretary to Mostaq Ahmad, helped me by giving lift from my Laxmi Bazar residence. As we were preparing the text of the address of the president, which would be televised in the evening at 8-15 PM, suddenly Tajul Islam entered the room and said, "Listen, Trivedi, there is a change now you write, 'parliament is dissolved, new parliament would be elected and democratically elected government would be installed in 1977'.
At Bangabhaban, I used to read a passage from Dr. Broad's "Theory of Time": "accept the reality of the present and the past, but holds that future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world the past is thus as real as the present. �Time is one of the world's deepest mysteries. No one can say exactly what it is. Yet, the ability to measure time makes our way of life possible. Most human activities involve groups of people acting together in the same place at the same time. People could not do this if they did not all measure time in the same way. One way of thinking about time is to imagine a world without time.
"Bangabandhu will live forever in Bangladesh -- the country he founded. One can kill a man but one cannot kill a spirit. Bangabandhu instilled in the hearts of millions the spirit of Bangalee nationalism that inspired them to fight against all odds for their freedom and emancipation. Bangladesh is a sovereign and independent country today and it is primarily due to his bold and courageous leadership. All efforts to undermine him during the past three decades have failed. One cannot draw a circle without a centre nor can one write the history of our independence struggle without acknowledging Bangabandhu's pivotal role. He is at the heart of Bangladesh and will always remain there" wrote Syed Muazzem Ali, former Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh.
On 17 March 1999, The then President Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed inaugurated the Bangabandhu's Mausoleum at Tungipara, paid his highest homage to Father of Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and prayed for the peace of the departed soul. He wrote his feelings in the visitor's book. I as press secretary to the president gave him draft. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had gone through it. After 34 years since August 1975, visiting the mausoleum of Bangabandhu at Tungipara, I was totally placid and pensive and more than silent. I was emotionally choked and spoke thus to myself.
I, who as a disciple in the sixties, an organizer in the seventies, a servant to the Republic for over three decades, and owe my existence as a freedom fighter, free citizen, of my beloved motherland Bangladesh, pay my humble homage with tears to the mausoleum of the great leader Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-1975). We salute to the hallowed memory of Bangabandhu, the great soul ever we met.r
Rabindranath Trivedi, a freedom fighter,
is a former civil servant
