A perfidy behind clemency!

The beneficiary Mohiuddin Jintu has a tell-tale set of irresistible credentials: one-time Chhatra Dal leader, reputedly since founder-president of BNP's Sweden branch, a fugitive from law, more precisely, from a death sentence handed to him in a double murder case 22 years ago, he has got himself Presidential pardon in record time. At least, by international standards. He arrived back in the country and surrendered to a court on January 3 this year and managed to get the clemency on January 13.

The hot haste in which his case was moved up, getting it whizz past the home and law ministries and the PMO, before eventually reaching the President's table for his grant of mercy, leaves an impression that somebody, some vested quarter, has hand-carried the file for decision on a double-quick basis. There was obviously a short-circuiting of the process and procedures which is likely to happen in a contrived and orchestrated movement of a file. More seriously, the withholding of the vital information about the two other co-accused who had been sentenced to death and were executed, in the summary placed before the President, is a culpable omission when in the exercise of such a constitutional prerogative as granting clemency the head of the state must be in full possession of facts before deciding one way or the other.

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For first time in Bangladesh's history a monumental bungling at the ministerial level appears to have fooled the offices of the head of the state and the head of the government, what with the tossing of blame between ministries of home and law which cannot make it look any better. What has happened and the way it has happened therefore sounds anachronistic to the spirit of clemency which consists in compassion and humanitarian concern for a convict facing death row.

There are reasons to believe that the lofty sacrosance and benevolent temper associated with clemency have been compromised in no small measure. It is therefore our demand that a public inquiry be held to bring every aspect of the amnesty case out into the open.