Covert affair

By quietly helping Bangladesh nab the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, India takes a big step in repairing strained bilateral ties

- RABI BANERJEE

For his neighbours, Ahmed Ali was master moshai, known for his proficiency in English, Urdu and the Quran. The soft-spoken 71-year-old used to teach students in the neighbourhood. He also used to lend money, at exorbitant interest. But he chose to keep it private, just like his rented apartment in Bedford lane, a central Kolkata locality with a significant Muslim presence, where he lived with his wife, Zareena, and their 10-year-old daughter.

“A long curtain always covered the gate,” said Safiq Ul Rahman, Ali’s landlord. “The door was always closed. Even I could not go in, although the house was mine. But he always paid the rent on time.”

Ali, who had been living in Kolkata since 1996, went missing from his house on February 21. Two weeks later came reports about his arrest in Bangladesh and the shocking revelation that he was Abdul Majed, a retired major in the Bangladesh army. He was wanted in Bangladesh for the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, revered as the father of the nation. He was executed on a long-pending death warrant on April 12.

For decades, Bangladesh has been doggedly pursuing six of its former military officers—Captain Abdur Rashid, Major Shariful Haq Dalim, Lieutenant Colonel Noor Chowdhury, Lieutenant Colonel Rashed Chowdhury, Lance Naik Moslem Uddin and Major Abdul Majed—implicated in Mujib’s assassination. Majed had been on the radar of intelligence operatives from India and Bangladesh for a while because of his trips to the US to meet his son from his first marriage and also for his frequent telephone conversations with his tainted colleagues.