1975 murder in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh, was assassinated along with most of his family members during the early hours of 15 August 1975 by a group of Bangladesh Army personnel who invaded his residence as part of a coup d'état. The Minister of Commerce, Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad, immediately took control and proclaimed himself head of an interim government from 15 August to 6 November 1975; he was in turn succeeded by Chief Justice Abu Sayem. The assassination marked the first direct military intervention in Bangladesh's civilian administration. Lawrence Lifschultz characterized this incident as an outcome of the Cold War between the United States-influenced Pakistan and the Soviet Union-influenced India. 15 August was annually observed as National Mourning Day under Sheikh Hasina regime.
Background.
Mujib's presidency.
In the 1970 Pakistani general election, Sheikh Mujib's party, the Awami League (previously known as the Awami Muslim League), won the majority of the seats in the Pakistani National Assembly. They won 160 of the general 162 seats and all 7 women's seats in East Pakistan, which would later become Bangladesh after it seceded from West Pakistan. Despite Pakistan's military government delaying the handover of power, Mujib's residence had become the de facto head of government in East Pakistan by March. At the start of the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, he was placed under house arrest by Pakistani soldiers on 25 March midnight just after declaring the independence of Bangladesh. On 10 April that year, the provisional government of the Bangladeshi rebellion, popularly known as the Mujibnagar Government, was established with Mujib as its head and as the leader of Bangladeshi armed forces. Following the defeat of Pakistani forces on 16 December 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was released from custody from Pakistan in London on 22 December 1971, from where he flew to India, and then to Bangladesh. Mujib led the government as Prime Minister of Bangladesh for three years after Bangladesh gained independence.
Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini controversy and outrage in the army.
The Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini (JRB) was a controversial militia formed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and loyal to him personally. Although it was originally founded as a law enforcing agency to maintain internal security, it became a second national armed-force and served as a political task force for the Awami League. As a result, it found little support among traditional military organisations such as the Mukti Bahini. Its 30,000 troops intimidated and tortured opponents of the Awami League in various ways. The military grew resentful of the level of funding the Rakkhi Bahini received from the Mujib government, with the former's own funding being reduced to 13% in the 1975–76 budget, a considerable decrease from the 50–60% it enjoyed during the Pakistan period.
Allegation of nepotism and corruption within the Mujib-family.
Sheikh Fazlul Haque Mani, a politician and one of the nephews of Mujib, was given lucrative positions in the Government formed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. When private trade with India was banned due to slow inflation, Fazlul Haque actively engaged in it with Mujibur Rahman's blessings. This was seen as an attempt by Mujibur Rahman to form a dynasty.
Near the end of 1973, Sheikh Kamal was involved in a shootout in which he suffered gunshot injuries. Multiple claims have been made as to how the shootout occurred. Many people claim that it was during an attempted robbery of a bank by Sheikh Kamal and his friends. However, a retired major general of the Bangladesh Army claimed that it was actually a case of friendly fire. Near the end of 1973, Bangladeshi security forces received intelligence that the left-wing revolutionary activist Siraj Sikder and his insurgents were going to launch coordinated attacks around Dhaka. Police and other security officers were on full alert and patrolling the streets of Dhaka in plainclothes. Sheikh Kamal and his friends were armed and also patrolling the city in a microbus looking for Siraj Sikder. When the microbus was in Dhanmondi, the police mistook Sheikh Kamal and his friends for insurgents and opened fire on them, thus injuring Sheikh Kamal. However, it is also claimed that Sheikh Kamal and his friends were in Dhanmondi to test drive a new car that his friend Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku had bought recently. Since Dhaka was under heavy police patrolling, police special forces under the command of the then city SP Mahamuddin Bir Bikrom opened fire on the car thinking that the passengers were miscreants.
A 1976 issue of the Asia Yearbook stated,
"It was an open secret - that Mujib's brother, Sheikh Nazir, was alleged to have monopolised the smuggling in the southeast; that his wife took a cut in contracting World Bank projects; that his son, Sheikh Kamal, had been involved in thuggery; and that his nephew, Sheikh Moni, was fast accumulating power and wealth."
Abdul Waheed Talukder, in his book "Gonotontrer Onneshay Bangladesh" (গণতন্ত্রের অন্বেষায় বাংলাদেশ, "Bangladesh in Search of Democracy"), said in the 1976 issue of the Asia Yearbook,
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;They also spread rumors that Sheikh Kamal was shot while robbing Bangladesh Bank. But the vault of Bangladesh Bank was guarded by hundreds of policemen and this vault was so secure that it could not be destroyed without dynamite.
Marcus F. Franda in his book "Bangladesh: The First Decade" says,
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;Shahidul Islam's reputation in Bangladesh was also tarnished by persistent rumors that he had been intimately involved in a bank robbery and scandal in 1972 and in the assassination of seven Dacca University students in 1974.
S. R. Mirza says in his book "Conversations after the War of Liberation", ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;I will say more about this. In 1975, a freedom fighter came to meet me. The freedom fighter said to me, sir, Bangabandhu used to say, don't spend money, get married with garlands of flowers. But he himself is marrying off his sons wearing golden crowns and it is being shown on TV. The inconsistency of these two standards and words--people will not accept it.' Then a friend of mine, I won't say his name, who was very close to Mr. Sheikh, he used to visit Mr. Sheikh's house from time to time and meet him, he worked in an oil company, after independence it was heard that Sheikh Kamal was shot while robbing a bank. While in the hospital, the gentleman said, "I then went to Bangabandhu's house, at noon, Sheikh Mujib and other members of his family were eating in the dining room. As I went, I heard Sheikh Sahib saying, 'When people start beating you, then what will I do! I don't know'." From this, it is easy to imagine that there was a problem in the leadership.
Left-wing insurgency.
A left-wing insurgency from 1972 to 1975 is widely held to be responsible for creating the conditions that led to the assassination. In 1972, a leftist group named the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) was founded from a split in the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of the Bangladesh Awami League. The JSD, through its armed wing Gonobahini led by Colonel Abu Taher and politician Hasanul Haq Inu, began a political massacre of government supporters, Awami League members, and police. Their campaign contributed to a breakdown of law and order in the country and paved the way for the assassination of Mujib. Hasanul Huq Inu later held the office of the Minister of Information under Sheikh Hasina's Second and Third cabinets.
Dalim-Mostafa conflict.
In 1974, Gazi Golam Mostafa kidnapped Major Shariful Haque Dalim and his wife from the Dhaka Ladies Club after an argument during Dalim's cousin's wedding reception. Dalim's only brother-in-law Bappi (his wife Nimmi's brother) was attending from Canada. Mostafa's son occupied the chair in the row behind Bappi and pulled Bappi's hair from the back. Bappi scolded the boy for his behavior and told him not to sit on the row behind him anymore. Mostafa's sons (who were close friends of Sheikh Kamal) and some associates forcefully abducted Dalim, Nimmi, the groom's mother, and two of Dalim's friends (both of whom were distinguished freedom fighters) in Microbuses owned by the Red Crescent. Mostafa was taking them to the Rakhi Bahini headquarters but later took them to the residence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Mujib mediated a compromise between them and made Mostafa apologize to Nimmi. When news of the abduction spread, the 1st Bengal Lancers ransacked Mostafa's and took his whole family prisoner. They also set up check posts all over the city searching for Major Dalim and the abductees. Some officers lost their jobs as a result. The officers involved, including Shariful Haque Dalim, were later orchestrators of the coup on 15 August 1975 and the assassination of Sheikh Mujib.
Rise and death of Siraj Sikder.
Siraj Sikder was contemporary leading Bangladeshi Maoist leader, in Mujib's regime. Born in 1944, he obtained an engineering degree from the East Pakistan University of Engineering and Technology (now BUET) in 1967. While he was a student he became a member of East Pakistan Student Union. In 1967, he was elected vice-president of the central committee of Student Union and later that year he joined the C &amp; B Department of the government as an engineer. Later he left his job to start a private engineering company. On 8 January 1968, along with like-minded activists, Sikder formed a clandestine organisation named Purba Bangla Sramik Andolon (East Bengal Workers Movement EBWM) with an objective to lead a struggle against the revisionism of the existing "Communist" organisations and to form a revolutionary Communist Party. This initiative brought forward a thesis that East Bengal is a colony of Pakistan and that the principal contradiction in the society is between the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and feudalists of Pakistan on one hand, and the people of East Bengal on the other hand. Only the independence struggle to form an "independent, democratic, peaceful, non-aligned, progressive" People's Republic of East Bengal, free also from the oppression of US imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and Indian Expansionism could lead the society forward towards socialism and communism. In late 1968, Sikder left the job to establish the Mao Tse Tung Research Center in Dhaka but it was later closed down by the Pakistani government. Sikder became a lecturer at the Technical Training College in Dhaka. In the meantime of Bangladesh War of Independence, at a liberated base area named Pearabagan at Bhimruly in Jhalokati District in the southern part of the country, on 3 June 1971, Sikder founded a new party named Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party (Proletarian Party of East Bengal) by ideology of Marxism and Mao Tsetung Thought (not "Maoism", during the 1960s the followers of Mao-line used to identify their ideology as Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought). At the beginning of the war, he went to Barisal and he declared that as a free living space and making it his base attempted to initiate his revolution throughout other places. After the Independence of Bangladesh he turned against the Sheikh Mujib government. In April 1973, he formed Purba Banglar Jatiya Mukti Front (East Bengal National Liberation Front) and declared war on Bangladesh Government. Under his leadership, the Sarbahara party carried out attacks against money lenders and landlords. In 1975, Sikder was arrested at Hali Shahar in Chittagong by the intelligence force of the government. He was killed in police custody on 3 January 1975 on his way from Dhaka Airport to the Rakkhi Bahini Camp at Savar. Anthony Mascarenhas narrated in his book "" that, Siraj's sister Shamim Sikder blamed Mujib for the killing of her brother.
Famine of 1974.
Ever since independence, the possibility of famine started appearing in Bangladesh. Corrupt administration, worsening flood situation, failure to deal with food crisis led to famine in North Bengal in 1974. The death toll from the famine is claimed to be between 27,000 and 15 lakh or approximately 300,000 to 4,500,000 (or 1 to 1.5 million).
According to many analysts, the famine reduced the popularity of the Mujib government and contributed to the circumstances of his assassination.
Corruption, malfunction and BAKSAL.
Sheikh Mujib later made himself President of Bangladesh and established a national unity government, the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL), on 7 June 1975 by banning all political parties and independent press. Mujib named the reform as Second Revolution. Although the BAKSAL was intended to bring stability to Bangladesh and uphold law and order, it engendered hostility among the bureaucracy, military, and civil