met Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the military jail in Attock in her bid to make the lead agree to a so-called compromise formula devised by the killer generals. Apparent Sheikh has told her to mind her own business. Even if this story is true, it is more th seven weeks now that no one has visited Sheikh to be able to tell the world about the stat" of his physical and mental health. Only Yahya himself conceded to a foreign journalist sometime ago that Sheikh was keeping bad health because the food supplied by the army was proving disagreeable.
There were also rumours that the leader was being subjected to inhuman torture r would not be surprised if it is true. It is a public fact that Yahya hated his guts. For a man almost totally devoid of civilized sensibilities fully trained by the British in colonial arrogance unarmed Sheikh's refusal to be browbeaten or to give in to army threat had consumed Yahya's brittle patience in no time.
Let me refer to his speeches since the day he declared the postponement of the national assembly session after consulting Bhutto and ignoring totally the majority party leader. He accused Sheikh of his failing to come to a so-called “consensus" with Bhutto but forgot his manners totally in the anger. While he referred to the villain as Mr. Bhutto, Sheikh was being referred to as Mujib. For a man raised in British-style army mess such lapse of courtesy could not have been an oversight. It easily betrayed his total dislike of the personality. In his next speech on 6th of March in which he grudgingly agreed to call the national assembly session on March 25 he again insulted Sheikh in the same manner, in fact added a crude venom every time he pronounced the name. In his speech of March 26 we noticed the repetition of the bad manner once again. It was clear that nothing would please Yahya more than to see Sheikh dead.
A deliberately leaked-out information alleging that Sheikh......had refused a defense counsel provided an added ground to the suspicion about a foul-play. Outside world did not have any contact with Sheikh. How could the refusal-to-defend story reach the world press unless with Yahya's collaboration? Doesn't this “refusal story" come very handy if the so-called trial is meant to be cover-up for an already committed crime? Particularly when everybody knows that Sheikh would never have agreed to be tried by a foreign military court. The mystery has been further hardened by the reported transfer of Mrs. Mujibur Rahman to Karachi from Dacca where she was kept under house-arrest since last April along with her children. Is the family being liquidated as well? The fact is that no crime is impossible for these men from the pages of medieval tales of horror.
That the junta has proceeded with the illegal trial despite worldwide condemnation including repeated concerns expressed by its mentor, the U. S. State Department gives more credence to the fear. If it turns out to be a fact, it would be proved that Yahya was taking the foreign press for a ride while his hangmen were putting the noose round Sheikh Mujib's neck. It would be interesting to note Nixon's response to the crime. The pretext he has been putting forward so far to justify continuance of arms and economic aid to the junta was that the U. S. government could gain a leverage this way for what....a political accommodation over Bangladesh. As long as Sheikh lives and remains in captivity the pretext comes very handy as a cover-up device. But without him
