Shahina Begum broke down in tears the moment a special court in capital Dhaka sentenced deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her close aide, former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, to death for crimes against humanity.
Begum’s 20-year-old son Sajjat Hosen Sojal was shot and his body burned by the police on August 5, 2024, hours before a student-led uprising forced Hasina to resign and flee the country she had ruled with an iron first for 15 years. Prosecutors allege that six student protesters were killed that day in Ashulia, a readymade garments hub on the outskirts of Dhaka: five shot and their bodies burned, while another was allegedly burned alive inside the police station.
The killings, allegedly ordered by Hasina in a desperate bid to hang on to power, were part of a brutal crackdown by security forces on what is referred to in Bangladesh as the July Uprising, during which more than 1,400 protesters were killed, according to the United Nations.
After a months-long trial held in absentia as Hasina and Khan had fled to neighbouring India, Dhaka’s International Crimes Tribunal on Monday sentenced the two to death, while a third accused – former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah al-Mamun – was given a five-year jail term because he had turned a state witness.
“I cannot be calm until she [Hasina] is brought back and hanged in this country,” Begum told Al Jazeera on Monday night, as the historic verdict triggered a surge of emotions across the country of 170 million people. But as hundreds of families who lost their loved ones during last year’s uprising come to terms with Monday’s landmark sentencing, many wonder if Hasina will actually face justice.
There are questions around whether India, a close ally of Hasina during her 15 years of rule, would extradite her and Khan, or whether it might instead help them escape justice.
“They took five minutes to burn my son alive, but it took almost a year and a half to deliver this verdict,” said Begum from her ancestral home in Shyampur village in the northern Gaibandha district.
Source: Here