Tragedy In November 1975...

Independent Bangladesh took a major blow in the early hours of 3 November 1975 when the soldiers who had gunned down Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family nearly three months earlier swooped on the four national leaders in the putatively secure confines of prison. These four men --- Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, M. Mansoor Ali, A.H.M. Kamruzzaman --- had played pivotal roles in the formation of the Mujibnagar government-in-exile in 1971 and had decisively steered the nation to victory over Pakistan at the end of the year. In a free Bangladesh, they would form the core of the government under the leadership of the Father of the Nation.

- Syed Badrul Ahsan

With the assassination of Bangabandhu on 15 August 1975, the clique which seized hold of the country under Khondokar Moshtaque Ahmed and the assassins, took these four Mujibnagar men into custody and lodged them in Dhaka Central Jail.

The murder of these men occurred amidst the confusion in which Bangladesh was plunged on 3 November. On the day, Brigadier Khaled Musharraf, a hero of the War of the Liberation, launched his own coup fundamentally as a move to restore the chain of command broken in the army when the majors and colonels around Moshtaque dislodged Bangabandhu’s government in August. One of the first acts undertaken by Musharraf was to place Major General Ziaur Rahman, chief of army staff since late August, under house arrest. With Colonel Shafaat Jamil, Colonel Najmul Huda and Major A.T.M. Haider, Musharraf moved swiftly to remove the Moshtaque cabal from office. In the face of his coup, the assassins capitulated. It was decided that all of them would be flown out of Bangladesh before the new regime entered upon its responsibilities.