A letter of Rehana that never reached Bangabandhu, Russel

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s younger daughter Sheikh Rehana had sent a letter to his father and youngest brother Sheikh Russell on August 14, 1975 after reaching Germany along with her sister Sheikh Hasina.

In the letter, Rehana described how they had travelled and how they were spending their days there which Awami League shared on its verified Facebook page in 2021 marking her birthday.

But, Bangabandhu and his nearly entire family were assassinated on August 15, 1975, when the letter was on the way.

Her 10-year-old brother, Russel, used to be reluctant about having his meals and resting properly.

In her letter, Rehana urged her brother to take care of his health and narrated how exquisite Germany’s nature was.

She also attached a couple of cards to the letter. But the letter never reached its destination.

Sheikh Rehana mentioned the sorrowful memories in a rare interview published in the weekly magazine Chitra Bangla on August 12, 1983.

Bangabandhu’s two daughters escaped the August 15, 1975 carnage as they were in Germany then.

They could not even seek justice for the brutal killing that completely changed the country’s political course and pushed the state towards Pakistani ideology as a black law called indemnity ordinance was promulgated to protect the killers.

“I think they had taken my life on August 15. I lost my father, my mother, my brothers. What will I live for? What was Russel’s fault? He wasn’t involved in politics. Neither was my mother. Why did they kill them? …I’m an orphan. I’m helpless. As a daughter, as a Bangalee, I demand justice for Bangabandhu’s murder,” Rehana said in the interview.

“I demand justice from people of Bangladesh,” she said.

In the interview published on AL’s verified Facebook page in 2021, she expressed her grief that she had harbored since the assassination of most of her family members.

“Imperialist forces were behind the assassination of Bangabandhu. Local agents were involved too, like snakes underneath flowers. The voices that should have been raised, among the country’s leaders, demanding justice for the merciless killing of Bangabandhu, were not as bold as expected,” added Rehana.

The killers who proudly declared their deed were offered indemnity and a hush fell on the chapter of the history that was gloriously led by the Father of the Nation. Bangabandhu’s daughters — Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana — had to agonizingly wait for six years to return to the country in 1981.