Pakistan denies presence of Mujib's assassins

Islamabad has rejected reports that Bangladesh founder-president Mujibur Rahman's assassins are at present living in Pakistan, saying that it was a figment of the Bangladeshi media's imagination, India's ministry of external affairs officials said.

The officials were commenting on the reported sighting of Mujib's assassins, including Colonel Rashid and Major Dalim, in Pakistan, which was reported in the Bangladeshi media.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Mujibur Rahman's daughter, was reportedly furious on reading about the presence of her father's assassins in Pakistan in her country's newspapers. It is learnt that when she tried to confirm the news from the Pakistani authorities, the latter denied it completely, terming it a fabricated story by the media in Bangladesh.

Islamabad's officials also denied a subsequent news report in the Bangladesh media that the country's Opposition leader, Begum Khaleda Zia, had met the assassins during her short visit to Pakistan recently.

Attempts by this reporter to contact the Bangladesh deputy high commissioner, Alim ul-Haq, was unsuccessful. A junior official said that Bangladesh had not made any official protest about the alleged presence of Mujib's assassins in Pakistan's because Islamabad did not acknowledge their presence.

However, it is learnt that both Rashid and Dalim, the two main suspects, are in Pakistan and living under fictitious names and with false passports.

Sheikh Hasina and her younger sister escaped the assassinations, which wiped out her entire family, because the two of them were not in Bangladesh on that fateful day, August 15, 1975.

For Sheikh Hasina, capturing her father's assassins is one of her primary objectives and she increased her efforts after becoming prime minister.

It is learnt that while the Bangladeshi prime minister has launched several diplomatic initiatives to extradite her father's assassins from the countries they are living in, states like Pakistan have apparently hindered her efforts by reportedly harbouring some of the assassins.