The assassins struck at the fateful hour with surgical precision, killing not only Bangabandhu, but virtually wiping out his entire family. Those who could never confront him politically sneaked in like spineless cowards and brutally killed the legendary hero. With that were killed a belief, an ideal, and as a matter of fact, the soul of the nation.

No one now doubts that it was a calibrated murder in cold blood as an inevitable result of a deep conspiracy by those who opposed our independence. The doubts are reinforced when in a series of calculated intrigues, the grisly killing of four national leaders in their incarceration soon followed.

The pattern continued as the phantom killers still stalking the country enacted August 21 in 2004, apparently in an attempt to put out the last few leading lights of our independence struggle. An ominous rise of the religious right and an Islamist militancy in the country is a pointer to the fact that the ramparts on which our statehood rest are clearly under assault. The fall-out of the August mayhem can be still more far reaching and devastating! We are already witnessing a bit of it under the present dispensation.

Worse still, the justice is yet to be dispensed for this, one of the most notorious political carnages in history, in which the lives of 24, including the incumbent head of the state, were lost. The first step in this regard the conspirators took was to indemnify the originals who were also rewarded in a variety of ways.

Although the indemnity was lifted by the AL government after long 21 years and the trial began, it couldn't, however, complete its proceedings. The trial was later afflicted with the "riddle of embarrassment" by most of the judges who, ironically, were not embarrassed at the windfall of independence brought about by the Bangabandhu.

The government of the BNP-Jamaat that benefited the most from the acts of the criminals has been naturally marking time to tire the aggrieved out so that at a stage they give up! People are under no illusion to believe that an establishment, which could let a convict like Jintu get off the hook, would abandon the convicts of Bangabandhu trial.

The sophistry and guile may have a good run for some length of time. But the event has its own body language and the contemporary history its tell-tale evidence. As a result, the hard truths can seldom be hidden from the public whose demand for justice has been getting louder each year when the mourning month of August returns.

The grapes of wrath seem to have come to another harvest this year when Bangabandhu has been remembered more than even before, and a wider spectrum of our population transcending more parties, groups and opinions, have been vocal in demanding the execution of the verdict of the trial. Year after year, the voices are reaching a crescendo which cannot go unheard. And the piled up anger of the people is bound to explode.

Sheikh Mujib was not a superman; neither did he pretend to be one. Yet during the heady days of Bengali nationalism to which he baptised his people, he moved across the country like a messiah to organise them for a final march towards independence -- something that comes to a people only once in thousands of years.

He might have stumbled in some of his steps in an extremely hostile domestic and international environment after independence. But his passionate love for his people and concern for their well-being never receded. However much his detractors try, it would be difficult to erase his memory. As he was in life, even today he is the heartbeat of the millions who sustain and nourish his legacy which dies hard.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.