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The families of those killed in the July–August 2024 mass uprising on Monday welcomed the death sentences handed by the International Crimes Tribunal-1 to absconding deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan for committing crimes against humanity during the uprising.

They demanded to bring the duo back to Bangladesh from India and execute the sentences.

All of them, however, rejected the five-year jail term awarded to detained former inspector general of police Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun and demanded harsher punishment for him. 

Mamun turned a state evidence and, that is why, the tribunal awarded him a reduced sentence.

The injured survivors and family members of the slain victims appeared in the International Crimes Tribunal-1 on Monday to hear the long-awaited verdict.

They said that justice would remain incomplete until bringing the two condemned fugitives back to the country and enhancing the sentence awarded to Mamun.

‘We cannot be fully satisfied,’ said Mir Mahbubur Rahman Snigdho, brother of Mir Mahfuzur Rahman Mugdho, one of the youths killed during the uprising.

‘We accept the verdict against Hasina and Asaduzzaman, but we reject the verdict on Mamun…..We want a life term for him,’ he said.

For Snigdho, justice is inseparable from closure. ‘It is not enough to hear the verdict,’ he said.

‘We want to see how Hasina and Asaduzzaman are brought back from India and hanged. The government must clearly tell us when and how they will start the process,’ he said.

Another slain victim Imam Hasan’s elder brother Robiul Awal Bhuiyan echoed the same demand.

‘Five years’ imprisonment for Mamun is not enough. He must face a life sentence. The souls of the July martyrs will rest in peace only when Hasina and Asaduzzaman are brought back and executed,’ he said.

Shamsi Ara Jaman, mother of freelance journalist Tahir Zaman Priyo, said no martyr’s family could accept the tribunal’s leniency towards Mamun. ‘Our hopes are not fulfilled,’ she said.

‘Every member of the law enforcement agencies who committed crimes must face the trial. We want to see them punished like Hasina.’

She also drew a personal parallel, ‘We want the sentence for Hasina to be executed the same way she executed the killers of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.’

Sabrina Afroz Sebonti, sister of Mahmudur Rahman Shaikat, who was shot dead in the capital’s Mohammadpur area, said that Mamun’s punishment does not match the scale of his responsibility. ‘Five years is not enough for the gravity of his crimes as a superior officer,’  she said.

‘We want this government to bring back Hasina and Asaduzzaman and execute the verdict wherever they are in hiding,’ she said.