Sirajur Rahman: After the assassination of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975, at 8 am, Colonel Rashid took Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed, the Commerce Minister of the Mujib government, from his house at 54 Agamsi Lane to the radio station in Shahbagh in a jeep. Colonel Farooq and a few other officers were there. They requested Khandaker Mushtaq to take charge of the government. They said that Mushtaq was the only acceptable leader for them. In response, Mushtaq said that he could not take power just on their words.
Within a short time, the rebel officers brought Army Chief General Shafiullah, Navy Chief Rear Admiral MH Khan, Air Force Chief AK Khandaker, BDR Chief General Khalilur Rahman and the Deputy Chief of the Guards there. The police chief arrived later. After they all took the oath of allegiance to him one by one, Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed said in a one and a half minute radio address at 11:15 am that he had accepted the responsibility that had been entrusted to him. (See: Fifteen years of Bangladesh independence from the BBC, published by UPL).
New Delhi did not look favorably on Khandaker Mushtaq’s assumption of power. The Indian government’s contact with the Mushtaq government was also minimal. The reason for this was during the Liberation War. Khandaker Mushtaq had been appointed Foreign Minister in Tajuddin Ahmed’s government. He believed that the war with Pakistan could continue indefinitely and that there would be a lot of casualties. He was willing to consider the possibility of Bangladesh gaining independence through negotiations. To that end, he went to Washington and met President Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
A negotiated settlement was against the plans of the Indian government. Pakistan would be divided and its headache over the eastern border and the need for annual defense expenditure of thousands of crores of rupees would be over, for that purpose alone India came forward to help in the Liberation War. Therefore, the cooperation of the then Indian government leaders with the Foreign Minister of the Government in Exile, Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed, almost ended. At that time, the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the Western alliance led by the United States was still very intense. The Soviet Union was India’s main international ally.
Some of the East Pakistanis studying in the UK used to participate in BBC programs part-time. After the brutal military operation of March 25, I started working with some of them to inform the foreign media and foreign embassies in London about the background of the Liberation War under the name of Bangladesh Chhatra Sangram Parishad. Basically, I used to write a ‘fact sheet’ every two to four days. The members of the Chhatra Sangram Parishad would circulate them among the media and diplomats by cyclostyle (the photocopying method had not been invented then). We regularly requested embassies to support our struggle. Representatives of some embassies have maintained contact with us.
Second Secretary Gennady Zhuraflov kept in touch with me on behalf of the Soviet embassy. He even visited me at Bush House a few times. Basically, they wanted to know our side’s analysis of the situation in the liberation war and some published news. Towards the end of September, Zhuraflov told me that a senior Soviet diplomat wanted to meet us directly. On the evening of the appointed date, I went to the Charles Dickens nightclub near Bush House with my then colleagues Abid Hossain and Shafiq Rehman. In addition to Gennady Zhuraflov, the Soviet embassy’s public relations director, Valery Kuznetsov, and a third person whose name I cannot remember now were present there.
They questioned us in detail about the situation of the liberation war, the extent of the damage, and the policies and goals of independent Bangladesh in our statements. Finally, Kuznetsov said that if the government in exile in Delhi agreed to make Abdus Samad Azad the foreign minister instead of Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed, then the Soviet Union would consider supporting the liberation movement of Bangladesh. That night, I informed Justice Abu Sayeed Chowdhury about the meeting by telephone. At my request and objection, he agreed to join our movement openly and full-time, and at his request, I agreed to maintain the responsibility of media liaison. A few days later, Justice Chowdhury was appointed the chief representative of the Bangladesh government in exile abroad. So almost every day at the end of the day we would exchange news and discuss future programs.
Just three days later, in the early hours of the morning, I heard on the radio that 306 diplomats (including the three mentioned above) from the Soviet embassy in London had been expelled from Britain for ‘activities inconsistent with diplomatic duties’ (espionage). Naturally, we were very scared for the next few days. But in the meantime, I received news that Abdus Samad Azad had been appointed as the Foreign Minister of the Government-in-Exile instead of Khandaker Mushtaq, and Mushtaq had been given the post of Commerce Minister. That was in early October 1971.
Another coup – Khaled Musharraf
Let us return to the context of 1975. Another military coup took place in Bangladesh in the early hours of November 3. Mushtaq had already announced the date for the presidential election. Speaker Abdul Malek Ukil, cabinet member Dr. Muzaffar Ahmed Chowdhury, General MAG Osmani, Law Minister Manoranjan Dhar and Taher Uddin Thakur were present at the meeting called by Mushtaq at Bangabhaban on the night of November 2 to discuss various aspects of the election. The meeting ended at 1 am.
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