Bangladesh keenly awaits the final verdict of its founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's murder trial as the Supreme Court is set to pronounce the judgment tomorrow, 34 years after he was gunned down in a military coup.
Law enforcement and security agencies have enforced a tight security vigil in the capital and vital installations elsewhere, fearing sabotage as five of the 12 condemned ex-army officers were still hiding abroad to evade justice.
"Police and other law enforcement and security and intelligence agencies have been put on high alert ahead of the pronouncement of the verdict," a senior home ministry official told PTI.
Additional forces and elite-anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) troops have been called out to keep vigil. Key buildings like the Supreme Court complex and Dhaka Central Jail are being monitoried with electronic gadgets and sniffer dogs.
Court officials said the five-member bench at the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court will sit in the morning tomorrow to pronounce the verdict after 29 days of appeal hearing on pleas of five of the 12 condemned ex-army officers, who are currently in jail.
Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members, including his 10-year old son Russel on August 15, 1975 in a predawn putsch that had also toppled the country's first government.
Rehman's elder daughter and prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana survived the carnage as they were abroad at that time.
The five accused ex-Lieutenant Colonels Syed Farook Rahman, Shahriar Rashid Khan, Mohiuddin Ahmed, AK M Mohiuddin and major Bazlul Huda are lodged in country's main central prison where security has been beefed up following tip-off that there may be attempts to free them.
The five had been sentenced to death by the high court which upheld a trial court ruling and they approached the apex court in appeal. The apex court last week set the date as the state lawyers sought to uphold the death penalties the convicts as the counsels for the jailed convicts earlier sought "life imprisonment" instead of death penalty for their clients.
But the counsels for the convicts pleaded for remission for a lighter punishment of their clients as five of the 12 ex-army officers who were earlier handed down the capital punishment already languished in jail for years since the trial process from 1996.
The six fugitives are sacked lieutenant colonels Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haq Dalim, Noor Chowdhury, Rashed Chowdhury, captain Mazed and risaldar Moslem Uddin while Dhaka has launched a diplomatic campaign to bring them back home also engaging the Interpol.
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