The Jail Killing Day
November 3 marks Jail Killing Day, one of the darkest chapters in Bangladesh’s history. On this night in 1975, four towering figures of the Liberation War—Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmad, Captain M. Mansur Ali, and A.H.M. Qamaruzzaman—were murdered inside Dhaka Central Jail. Their assassins, acting in coordination with those behind the August 15 killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, struck deep into the heart of the nation’s founding leadership.
The four men—Bangabandhu’s most trusted comrades—had been imprisoned following the coup that brought down his government. In the pre-dawn hours of November 3, 1975, they were shot and bayoneted to death inside their cells. Each had refused to join Khandaker Mushtaque Ahmed’s illegal regime, which sought to legitimize the August coup. Their steadfast loyalty cost them their lives.
A Tragic Legacy Under Erasure
For decades, the nation honored Jail Killing Day with solemn state observance. But since the military- and Islamist-backed overthrow of Sheikh Hasina’s elected government in August 2024—engineered under Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus—the tradition has been forcibly silenced. State media, now under the regime’s control, avoid covering the event, and private commemorations face harassment. What was once a national day of mourning has become a litmus test of courage and conscience.
Rights groups and journalists report that the current interim authorities—who glorify the 1975 coup-makers—have erased historical references to the killings from school programs, archives, and news broadcasts. The political cleansing has reached into every institution once shaped by the ideals of the Liberation War.
The Crime and Its Consequences
A murder case over the jail killings was first filed on November 4, 1975, by Kazi Abdul Awal, then deputy inspector general of prisons. The investigation stalled for more than two decades until the Awami League government revived it after returning to power in 1996. On October 20, 2004, the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Court delivered its verdict, sentencing three fugitives to death and twelve others, including several former army officers, to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court later upheld the convictions in a 235-page judgment released in December 2015.
Among those convicted, Captain (dismissed) Abdul Majed—also sentenced to death in the Bangabandhu assassination case—was captured in April 2020 and executed soon after. Most others remain fugitives.
Renowned journalist Anthony Mascarenhas chronicled the conspiracy in Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood, describing how the killings were planned to be automatically executed in the event of a counter-coup. The operation was carried out by a five-member assassination squad led by Risaldar Mosleh Uddin, a trusted officer of Colonel Syed Faruq Rahman.
Defenders of Freedom
During the 1971 Liberation War, Syed Nazrul Islam served as acting president of the Mujibnagar government, guiding the nation through its most perilous months after Bangabandhu’s arrest by the Pakistani junta. Tajuddin Ahmad, as prime minister, led the diplomatic and strategic drive for independence, while Qamaruzzaman and Mansur Ali shaped guerrilla tactics against the Pakistani army. Their assassination was not only a crime of politics but an assault on the very architecture of Bangladesh’s freedom.
Justice Deferred, Truth Denied
In 1980, an international commission was formed in London to investigate the killings of Bangabandhu and the four leaders. The initiative, led by Sir Thomas Williams, QC, MP, and supported by Sheikh Hasina, Sheikh Rehana, and the families of the slain leaders, was blocked by President Ziaur Rahman’s government, which refused visas and cooperation. The effort collapsed, leaving impunity intact.
Today, under the Yunus-led interim regime, that impunity is once again normalized. The occupying administration glorifies those once branded as traitors and silences those who seek justice. For Bangladeshis who still cherish the ideals of 1971, November 3 remains a day of both remembrance and resistance—a reminder that history itself is under siege.
