Dhaka: Black flags adorned Bangladesh's skyline yesterday as the country marked the 36th anniversary of the assassination of its founder Bangabandhu Shaikh Mujibur Rahman.

Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina, the only surviving child of Shaikh Mujibur Rahman, and the President Ziaur Rahman, a close associate of the late leader, paid floral tributes to Bangabandhu at his house, which is now known as Bangabandhu Memorial Museum.

Thousands joined the mourning in the capital and elsewhere wearing black badges as army bugles played the last post, while a combined military contingent offered ceremonial honour guards at the same house where a group of army officers killed Bangabandhu along with most of his family members.

Twenty eight people including Bangabandhu's wife Begum Fazilattunesa, three sons, including 10-year old son Russel, were killed in the putsch that also toppled Bangladesh's post independence Awami League government.

Hasina and her younger sister Shaikh Rehana survived the coup as they were abroad at that time.

Five of the 1975 coup leaders were hanged last year while six were on the run after a protracted trial process which began 11 years after the carnage when the assassinated leader's Awami League returned to power in 1996 general elections.

Meanwhile, noted US journalist Lawrence Lifschultz, widely known for his extensive studies on Bangladesh's army coups in mid-1970s, has said he believed that the slain president Ziaur Rahman was the "key shadow man" behind the August 15, 1975 putsch, which eventually propelled him to power.

"I believe in the future a great many more details about Ziaur Rahman's involvement in the August 15 events will emerge. It is my assessment at this point in time that Zia played perhaps the most crucial of all roles," Lifschultz told Gulf News in an exclusive interview in Dhaka.

Own reasons

Lifschultz added that Ziaur Rahman, who was the deputy chief of the army in 1975, "had his own reasons for not leading the coup himself but without his support, I do not believe the coup d'etat could have moved forward".

We need to understand in much greater depth how he operated in the shadows during these crucial times," said the US journalist.

Lifschultz was the Bangladesh correspondent of Far Eastern Economic Review in early 1970s. He was later appointed as its New Delhi-based South Asia correspondent.