‘Justice was denied’: Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina on her family’s massacre, taking refuge in Delhi’s Pandara Road

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina remembered one of the darkest chapters in the history of her country on the eve of her four-day visit to India. While speaking to news agency ANI, the Bangladesh PM talked about the horrific massacre of her family in 1975, and how she fled her country.

Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina further revealed that she was once a secret resident of Delhi’s posh Pandara Road, where she lived with her children under an assumed identity trying to escape the attention of those who assassinated her father Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.

During a tear-jerking television interview with ANI, Hasina Sheikh talked about the assassination of her father nearly five decades ago, when she had gone to Germany to reunite with her nuclear scientist husband.

It was the 30th of July in 1975 and family members had come to the airport to see Hasina and her sister off. It was a happy farewell and Hasina had no inkling that it would turn out to be her last meeting with her parents.

Nearly a fortnight after her emotional farewell to her family, on the morning of August 15, Hasina received news that her father, the legendary statesman Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, had been killed. The horrors continued as she further compounded when she received news of the summary execution of more members of her family.

"It was really unbelievable. Unbelievable, that any Bengali could do it. And still, we didn't know how what really happened. Only there was a coup, and then we heard that my father was assassinated. But we didn’t know that all the family members were, you know, they were assassinated," Hasina said, fighting back tears.

As many as 18 members of her family members and relatives were killed in the massacre, which included her 10-year-old brother.

She said, “Mrs Indira Gandhi immediately sent information that she wanted to give us, I mean, security and shelter. So we received, especially from Marshal Tito from Yugoslavia, and Mrs Gandhi. We decided to come back here (Delhi) because we had in our mind that if we go to Delhi, from Delhi we’ll be able to go back to our country. And then we’ll be able to know how many members of the family are still alive.”

Sheikh Hasina and her family were allotted a secret house on Pandara Road with top-level security, and a job for her husband to make ends meet. “On one hand we lost everybody, and on another hand I cannot ask for justice. Justice was denied,” she said.

(With ANI inputs)

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