Serajul Huq emerged as first man to challenge Moshtaq
Khandaker Moshtaq Ahmed, the key-political patron of August 15, 1975 coup plotters who installed him as the President soon after the carnage, carried on visibly unchallenged for an interval of 8 weeks, when someone emerged to confront him, in person.
History suggests the person was Serajul Huq - a senior lawmaker of that time and childhood friend of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Being truly a famed criminal attorney he eventually appeared as the chief prosecutor of his murder trial aswell.
“The protest was very straight and loud - eyeball to eyeball,” said Ali Ashraf, who witnessed the protest at a gathering at Bangabhaban as a lawmaker from a Cumilla constituency as he was speaking with BSS coinciding with Huq’s 18th death anniversary.
Ashraf, an MP in current parliament aswell, recalled that the challenge which Huq had thrown, made Moshtaq furious while the killers in military uniform made obvious their strong existence around, wielding their guns, scarring everyone at the scene.
He, however, cannot specify the actual date but assumed it had been a day in the center of October when Huq had his heated confrontation with Moshtaq drawing an abrupt end to the meeting at the presidential palace, Bangabhaban.
Huq’s son and current law minister Anisul Huq said Moshtaq, as a matter of known fact, had called two meetings in October, the first one in mid October and the next in the later part of the same month.
According to junior Huq lawmakers from from coast to coast were called to the first meeting, as the second one was exclusively with MPs from Cumilla, which was Moshtaq’s own home district.
Junior Huq, however, could not assert the specific meeting dates but affirmed that on return from both meetings his father gave him an in depth account of incidents that occurred in Bangabhaban on both days.
Moshtaq visibly called the meetings in his efforts to draw the lawmakers’ allegiance at gunpoint but on both the occasions, Serajul Huq challenged his presidency.
Anisul Huq said in both meetings his father declined to accept Khandaker Moshtaq Ahmad as the country’s president. However in the next meeting the deliberations became very heated as it was relatively a smaller gathering and Moshtaq was hurling abuses at other people who tried to guard Advocate Serajul Huq.
Anisul Huq gave an in depth description of what he heard from his father.
“Today, I cannot call you the President; at best I could call you Moshtaq Bhai,” he quoted Serajul Huq as saying in the first meeting.
“Yet I don’t feel just like calling you so (Moshtaq Bhai) because you aren't that Khandaker Moshtaq whom I knew (and) therefore i avoid calling you anything.”
Anisul Huq said his father reminded Msshtaq of his close association with both Bangabandhu and himself for over 27 years if they even shared single food plate while “you never criticized or complained regarding any of his decisions”.
“Today you say Bangabandhu is a thief and you certainly are a good man and I will be a witness? you asked me to become a witness to it? how dare you!,” Huq junior said.
Among the coup leaders at the scene at that moment pointed his gun to Huq who along with his tactfulness outsmarted him.
“Major, I am not speaking with you, I am talking to him (Moshtaq) , because he was among us, if you want to kill me, kill me 5 minutes later, i want to finish (what I must tell him) first”.
Other senior lawmakers’, who were called to speak in line with a list that Moshtaq had prepared, were careful in choosing their words to evade wraths of Moshtaq and putsch leaders.
Years’ later, eminent journalist late ABM Musa, who was a witness to the episode at Bangabhaban as a lawmaker from greater Noakhali constituency, in his memoirs recalled that Huq’s comments bewildered two majors at the scene who soon moved out of the room as signaled by Moshtaq.
“Then Serajul Huq directly questioned - why you have killed Mujib?,” Musa wrote adding that Moshtaq replied that persons would know in due time what had necessitated the killing.
According to Musa, Huq commented, “I will wait to really know what the need was, until I come to learn it, stay as the President of the captains-majors, we cannot recognize you (as the President)”.
Anisul Huq said tension was high in the next meeting where Moshtaq recommended to talk exclusively with MPs of his own district.
Revisiting his memory lane Ashraf substantiated junior Huq as he talked to BSS separately saying the lawmakers who joined the next meeting nearly ran away fearing bloodshed as an abashed Moshtaq failed to keep his cool temperament despite his cunning nature.
According to both junior Huq and Ashraf at the start of that meeting, Moshtaq first took a swipe at senior lawmaker Kazi Zahirul Quiyum of Cumilla, thought to be his opponent in local politics, where Serajul Huq had put his weight behind the later.
Quiyum tried to shrug off saying “I said nothing against Moshtaq”.
“Then he (Moshtaq) started discussing my father saying I might have done a wrong . . . but why this fellow (Huq) has launched a vigorous campaign (against me) . . . what's his worth as a lawyer!,” junior Huq said.
He said Serajul Huq told him he primarily preferred to stay quiet but Moshtaq slowly but surely turned very abusive as two lawmakers, one of them being truly a lady, tried to defend his father.
Junior Huq said Dr Abdul Haque, who was simply elected from Cumilla’s Banchharampur constituency, first tried to speak politely in Serajul Huq’s favour but responded with Moshtaq’s harsh rebukes.
Then Professor Momtaz Begum, who was simply elected to parliament from a reserved women seat and died three months ago following the COVID-19 outbreak in the country, made an effort to the stand by position Serajul Huq, whom she used to call “chacha” or “uncle” but Moshtaq stopped her aswell hurling “very vulgar words”.
“Having seen this (their humiliation) my dad got up and said that is becoming an excessive amount of . . . you (Moshtaq) are talking from a posture of advantage, you come out of this Bangabhaban on the road, I'll slap you on the face,” junior Huq said.
He said he learnt from his father and others at the scene that pandemonium broke out after Serajul Huq’s comments and “the meeting broke off as every person (virtually) ran away . . .”
Ashraf, who was in his mid 20s in those days, said he accompanied Serajul Huq to that meeting and recalled that the senior lawmaker himself drove his personal Volkswagen car to Bangabhaban.
“The meeting venue was the primary Darbar Hall (of Bangabhaban) nonetheless it appeared we are in a sealed compartment surrounded by gun wielding military personnel,” said Ashraf, still a lawmaker and former parliamentary deputy speaker.
He said as the problem was getting away from control he feared that the killers could open fire and “I arrived of the meeting hall holding his (Serajul Huq’s) arm as individuals were running away”.
“However the situation scared me so much, I was afraid the killers may chase him (Huq) . . . I didn't take the ride in his car again and (so) told him I can walk down,” Ashraf said.
Anisul Huq said after his return home that night his father told him “what I had said (at Bangabhaban), I said that rightly . . . I don’t value the consequences”.
