It is regrettable that even 28 years after national leaders Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajudddin Ahmed, Mansur Ali and AHM Kamruzzaman were killed, the trial of the assassins is still not over. The point is all the more pertinent because successive governments unequivocally committed themselves to the supremacy of law, which, in essence, meant that nobody would be allowed to get away with culpable crimes. There is little doubt that the jail killing was one such crime.

The leaders have to be given their due place in the history of politics in this country. They led the nation through the darkness of the excruciating days of 1971, and definitely deserved full recognition for the service that they had rendered to the nation.

But ruthless politics, or its ugly manifestation, cut short their lives. They fell victim to the assassins' bullets when the nation was passing through a grave crisis following the events of August 1975. That added a black chapter, an indelible one, to our political history.

There is no way to make amends for what happened on November 3, 1975, but that does not absolve the nation of its responsibility to uphold the law as the guiding force in dealing with all kinds of aberrations, including the ghoulish crime committed on that day.

The law should have taken its natural course long back. That would have served the cause of justice and, no less important, brought back a feeling of equanimity to our collective psyche which is essential for our onward march with a clear conscience.