HC revives trial after 12 years for 1975 killings of 4 BTV officials
The High Court today (August 31, 2022) cleared the way for a lower court concerned to resume the trial proceedings of a sensational case filed for killing four officials of Bangladesh Television (BTV) during the mass upsurge in 1975.
The four officials, who were killed in Dhaka's Rampura were the then deputy general director (programme) of BTV Monirul Alam, its administrative officer AFM Siddique, chief accountant Akmal Khan and photographer Firoz Kaiyum Chowdhury.
A year after the killings, three of their skeletons were recovered from Motijheel, but Monirul's corpse was never discovered. The remains were laid to rest in the Azimpur graveyard. The four kidnapping cases that the families had filed eventually turned into a murder case.
Today, the HC lifted the stay order issued on April 25, 2010, on the trial proceedings of the case.
The bench of Justice Md Abu Zafor Siddique and Justice Md Mahmud Hassan Talukder lifted the stay order after rejecting a petition filed by Altaf Hossain, an accused in the murder case, in 2005 seeking cancellation of the trial proceedings.
Following today's HC order, the trial proceedings against five accused will run at the lower court as one accused has already died and proceedings against the other three accused have been scrapped by the HC earlier, Deputy Attorney General Samira Tarannum Rabyea told The Daily Star.
Attorney General AM Amin Uddin appeared for the state while lawyers Md Ozi Ullah, Md Harun Ur Rashid and Sheikh Rezaul Haque stood for accused petitioner Altaf Hossain.
Following the assassination of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members on August 15, 1975, army personnel were reportedly stationed at radio and TV stations in Dhaka.
Third and fourth-grade BTV staff members were agitating at the time to get their demands met, but the authorities were rejecting them.
The honorary Lt Altaf Hossain of the army, stationed at the TV station in Rampura, had a meeting with the leaders of the protesting staff and agreed to help them in getting their demands met.
On November 6, 1975, Altaf and the other leaders decided to confine important officials to press for their demands.
On the morning of November 7 of that year, Altaf, BTV staff members Abul Quashem Bagoja, Abul Awal Sarkar, Lutfar Rahman Talukder, Syed Ainul Kabir, Ainuzzaman, and Md Shahjahan Miaji detained Monirul Alam, Akmal Hossain, and AB Siddique at the TV entrance and killed them.