Five former police officials were sentenced to death by a Bangladesh court on Monday for opening fire on a motorcade of then Opposition leader Sheikh Hasina in 1988 that killed her 24 supporters during an anti-government rally.
The court in Bangladesh’s southeastern port city of Chattagram handed down the verdict on Monday after the completion of the defence’s argument. As many as 53 witnesses testified in the court over the attack on the 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. On January 24, 1988, police opened fire on a procession which was escorting the motorcade of Hasina while she was going to address a rally in the port city against regime of then military dictator HM Ershad.
Hasina narrowly escaped the attack in which her 24 supporters were killed. Attack was seen by Awami League leaders as an “attempt to assassinate” Hasina. Prosecution said Hasina was visibly the target but she escaped the shooting 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.
