Bangladesh’s first military dictator Zia initiated culture of inpunity with indemnity ordinance for Bangandhu killers: Joy

Lamenting the disgraceful inclusion of the indemnity of Bangabandhu's killers in the fifth amendment to the constitution, Prime Minister's ICT Affairs Advisor Sajeeb Wazed Joy has termed it as the beginning of the culture of impunity.

"Today is notorious 9 July. On this day in 1979, this indemnity act against humanity was passed in the parliament, initiating the culture of impunity in the country," wrote Joy from his verified Facebook account.

Following the darkest chapter in independent Bangladesh, the assassination of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family on 15 August, 1975, the indemnity ordinance was introduced on September 26 in the same year, paving the path for Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad to take over with the help of Bangabandhu's killers, he added.

According to the indemnity ordinance, no one involved in Bangabandhu's murder or its conspiracy could be tried in lower court, Supreme court, or court martial. 

Thus Ziaur Rahman turned the ordinance into an act, denying people's basic rights to get justice, he further said.

The killers were protected and rewarded through the indemnity ordinance. Even some of them were endowed with embassy jobs while some became members of the parliament in 1988, he wrote in the post accompanied by a video.

The stigma was finally eradicated by the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government, which scapped the act on 12 November, 1996, he concluded.