Shah AMS Kibria: Asking for Justice

It happened very sadly and suddenly. No one knew that it would happen like this. It was an ordinary day for a 73 year old Shah AMS Kibria, a parliamentarian, a politician, a former bureaucrat, a diplomat, a former finance minister, and a cultural person who went out to his constituency in Habiganj to address his supporters. On January 27, 2005, he finished his political meeting and was coming out from the school where his meeting took place. Suddenly, a grenade was thrown towards him. He was fatally injured and died in few hours. We have just silently passed the first anniversary of the assassination of the former Bangladeshi Finance Minister Shah AMS Kibria. A happy family lost their beloved person, a nation lost one of the best and the brightest sons, an opposition party lost its star. Nothing happened in last one year. No one was brought to justice. The current BNP-Jamat Government tragically failed to bring the criminals to justice and played a dirty partisan politics to expedite the judicial process.

Shah AMS Kibria has now turned to be a powerful voice in our hearts and national spirit. His family and friends have successfully modeled a wonderful and peaceful way to protest his assassination and to demand justice for his killing. Bangladesh has unbeatable reputation in South Asia for political and partisan killing. Peoples and groups across the globes including Amnesty International, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, European Parliament, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have already condemned Mr. Kibria's killing and demanded an expeditious justice to the killing of Mr. Kibria. We may loose great leaders in turmoil but we will never loose our conscience and resiliency. That is why; people wake up through political activism to reach to a national consensus to bring political criminals to justice. Mr. Kibria's assassination is not the end of an era; it is a unique beginning of a new day to raise national and international consciousness to stop terrorism and political killing in Bangladesh. Kibria family demands international probe and UN led investigation. Why don't you join with the grieving Kibria family and the people of Bangladesh to ask for justice?

(Cross posted in Adda's Bangla Blog)