45 years on, families of army and air force officers executed by Gen Zia still await justice

Naheed Ezaher Khan was only five years old in 1977 when she saw her father's body. He was killed like hundreds of other military officers during Gen Ziaur Rahman's military regime.

Her last memory of her father is a body perforated with bullets – that imagery still haunts her, even after 45 years.

The murder spree went on following the takeover of Gen Ziaur Rahman who ordered killing, by hanging or on firing squad, of the army and air force officers charged with a coup attempt on October 2, 1977.

Still deprived of justice, she recounted her ordeals at an event held in Cumilla on 10 December, marking Human Rights Day 2022, where several other victim families also pleaded for justice.

Recounting the days overcast with gloom following her father's death, Naheed said, "Hearing the news, my mother talked to Gen Ziaur Rahman to bury my father through proper religious rituals and with state honor befitting a military officer safeguarding his nation with due diligence and a freedom fighter fighting for the independence of this land."

All their pleas fell on deaf ears of the military ruler who fortified his position as the country's ruler after the assassination of the Father of the Nation in 1975.

The death of her father slipped their family into an abyss of despair as they were treated like traitors despite her father's contribution as a freedom fighter and a military officer. She and her sibling were even refused admission in schools as the tag of being "children of a death sentence awardee" hung around their life.

Naheed Ezaher Khan is one of over 1,000 family members of the officers, murdered on the same occasion, who teamed up under the banner of "Ma-er Kanna" (Mother's Tears) to demand the restoration of the honor snatched away from them and posthumous trial of Ziaur Rahman.

Gen Zia, in his six years' stint, oversaw execution of at least 1500 officers who were freedom fighters. 

Journalist Zayadul Ahsan Pintu, who is known for his research on post-1975 killings of the members of the armed forces, had said that the then military tribunal judges used to read out pre-written judgment signed by the Gen Ziaur Rahman.

Hundreds of mothers, wives, sisters, and brothers made frantic effort to see or locate the remains of the deceased, but to no avail.

Ziaur Rahman, who mercilessly hanged countless officers suspected of coup, mercifully protected, through an indemnity ordinance, the self-proclaimed killers of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman whose death marked the beginning of the darkest chapter in the country's history.

Another woman, Laila Anjuman, shed tears even after all these years as her spouse Flight Sergeant Tofazzal Hossain was picked up from the cantonment a year and a half into their wedding. She lashed out at Ziaur Rahman, who "hanged her husband in the guise of suppressing a so-called rebellion".

She had married Tofazzal and had a six-month-old baby at the time of her husband's death. The most heart-wrenching part is that she is yet to show her child where her husband's grave is. 

Legal experts heavily criticize the fact that the bodies were not returned to their families after the death sentences were executed, which is a rare cruelty.