DHAKA, 31 March 2007 — Six top militants convicted of killing two judges in a 2005 bomb attack in southern Bangladesh were hanged yesterday.
The six members of the banned Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh group, which wants to introduce the Shariah in the country, had been sentenced to death for the Nov. 14, 2005 slayings in the town of Jhalakathi.
During their trial, the defendants said they targeted the courts because they are run by secular law.
The six men — Sheikh Abdur Rahman, Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai, Abdul Awal, Khaled Saifullah, Ataur Rahman Sunny and Iftekhar Hasan Al-Mamun — were hanged early yesterday in four separate prisons, Channel-I private TV station reported.
“Yes, it has happened, but I can’t give you any details,” a prison official said on condition of anonymity.
A seventh suspect in the case, who was sentenced to death in absentia, remains at large.
The executions were kept secret until security forces delivered the militants’ bodies to their families early yesterday. TV footage showed the relatives signing papers to confirm receipt of the bodies. Relatives and neighbors gathered gloomily around the wooden coffins, but there were no protests.
Sheikh Abdur Rahman, known as the supreme commander of the militants, was executed at a prison in eastern Comilla town. His sister Atiqua Begum said security forces brought his body to the family in the remote farming village of Charsigram in Jamalpur district, about 130 km north of the capital Dhaka.
“We are preparing for the funeral,” she said, as villagers and reporters gathered in the village. “Allah will forgive him,” she said.
The body of Siddiqul Islam, Abdur Rahman’s deputy, reached his village home in northern Bogra district before dawn. Islam’s body was brought in a wooden coffin and received by his brother Rafiqul Islam. “I was eating my breakfast this morning when I heard the siren of an ambulance in our village. It brought the body of my brother,” Rafiqul Islam said by telephone.
Early this month, President Iajuddin Ahmed rejected appeals for clemency by the six men, paving the way for their execution. The Supreme Court turned down the militants’ appeal against the death sentence in late November.
At least 50 people, including judges, lawyers, police and cultural activists, have been killed and several hundred injured during Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh’s terrorist campaign since 1994.
The wife of slain judge Jagannath Pandey welcomed the executions. “I’ll never get my husband back, but I’m happy that justice has prevailed. The killers have been punished,” Pallabi Pandey told reporters at her home in southern Barisal town.
National police chief Nur Mohammad said security had been tightened across the country, which has been under emergency rule since January when political violence between supporters of rival parties led to the cancellation of elections.
— Additional input from agencies
