An Open Letter to General Moeen

Your Highness General Moeen U Ahmed

I will not start by thanking you as you are being thanked by a lot of people everyday in Bangladesh. Except one newspaper, I hardly see any newspaper who will dare write anything about you but some glaring words of adulation for all your great deeds since the day you helped impose a state of emergency in Bangladesh.

Honorable Chief of Army Staff

Lately I hear you lecturing the nation on the misdeeds of our politicians and hear you talking all the popular talks about how much money being funneled out of the country and how we discovered the mine of relief CI sheets. Sir, while you make all these political talks, the people you are talking against are gagged, incarcerated without any opportunities of self defense and any chance for bail. You talk about restoring civility and a rule of law. But what kind of rule of law is it where you can make advance judgments on cases yet to be prosecuted by the legal system, without letting us hear any view from the opposite site or see any exhibit in favor of your judgment?

Your Excellency

That day you bragged that once you ordered the IG police, all the violence in our garments industry has stopped. In Bangladesh rule of precedence are you supposed to command the IG of Police? Or you simply can do that as the forces under your command carry heavier weapons than the forces under the command of the IGP? Mr. General have you ever thought why your forces are stronger than the forces under the IGP? In case you didn’t know, it is because, the people of Bangladesh spends thousands of times more money to feed, clothe, equip your forces. While a police constable, on a duty at a violent Dhaka spot, waits in hungry stomach for hours for one of his only two cheap –inadequate meals a day, your forces are very well fed. While the kids of Bangladesh don’t get to drink milk, we feed your forces milk, egg and other good healthy stuff with ridiculously subsidized price. Dear General, would it be wrong to assume that if we spent a part of the budget we spent on your forces, any other force would be as good as your force is deemed to be?

Honorable General Moeen

Hanging Hangover, Justice and vengeance

I went out of my way in my attempt not to watch Saddam Hossain being hanged. I failed. We live in a world, where you have no way but watching Saddam Hossain in Hangman’s noose. I do not like watching taking a life. This disliking started with the shocking NY Times first page picture of Col. Nazibullah, the ex Afhgan ruler being hanged in a lamp-post by the Taliban.

And then, just these days, the media forced me to watch the faces of five of six the hanged militants.

Bangla vai’s body was not shown. It was reported that that was done at Bangla vai’s request. . But I don’t believe that authorities will not let a vital accused like Bangla Vai not photographed and publicized.
An interesting news came out in Ajker Kagoj newspaper on the day after hanging. According to Ajker Kagoj, one of the six hanged militants, Bangla Vai got decapitated.
I do not recall seeing any denial of this story.

This not so rare complication of hanging has just been well publicized at the similar decapitation of Saddam Hossain’s half brother.

Before I go ito whether Bangla ai had the same fate or not let me first talk some scientific stuff about hanging

There are 4 main forms of hanging.
• Short or no drop hanging where the prisoner drops just a few inches, and their suspended body weight and physical struggling causes the noose to tighten, normally resulting in death by strangulation or carotid or Vagal reflex.
• Suspension hanging where the executee is lifted into the air using a crane or other mechanism.
• Standard drop hanging where the prisoner drops a predetermined amount, typically 4-6 feet, which may or may not break their neck. This is the method adopted in Bangladesh I believe.
• Finally, measured or long drop hanging as practised in Britain from 1874, now used in USA and other western countries, where the distance the person falls when the trapdoors open is calculated according to the weight, height and physique of the person and is designed to break the neck. This method was adopted in British Colonies and by some other countries who wished to make executions more humane.



Drop tables.
The weight of the prisoner is the weight recorded when they were weighed, clothed, the day before execution. The drop depth is dependent on the weight.
1892 table 1913 table
Weight of prisoner Drop in feet & inches Weight of prisoner Drop in feet & inches







So, if the drop (Rope) length is more than the calculated length for the weight, there are chances of decapitation. Bangla Vai (If the Ajker Kagoj report is true), being a heavy set man, apparently did require much shorter drop length. Failure to that adjustment probably caused the decapitation.

Similarly when the frail young women and men commit suicide in Bangladesh most of them require a longer rope to cause instant death to break the neck bone causing an instant death. Their ignorance about the above mentioned table causes them to endure a prolonged painful death by asphyxiation.

And let me finish this note with the urge again to stop death penalty. We have no right to take away something which we will never be able to give back. Every human has tremendous potential and every single person may repent one day and contribute a lot positively to the society.

We must not mix the word justice and vengeance. And we must not use the word justice to fulfill our lust for vengeance. Forgiveness is definitely a better way than vengeance.