Shahjahan Bhuiyan

Shahjahan Bhuiyan (26 March 1950 – 24 June 2024) Bangladeshi was a prisoner and executioner. He was sentenced to a cumulative total of 184 years in prison for various crimes; he later served over 31 years of jail time due to sentence appeals, good behavior and performing executions. During his imprisonment, he served as an executioner, carrying out the death sentences of six assassins of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, convicted war criminals of the Bangladesh genocide, and several other notable murder convicts. He was the longest-serving inmate in Bangladesh's history and the executioner who performed the highest number of hangings in the country.

Early life Shahjahan Bhuiyan was born on 26 March 1950 in Isakhali, East Bengal, Dominion of Pakistan (situated in present-day Gazaria Union, Palash Upazila, Narsingdi District, Bangladesh). He was the son of Hasan Ali Bhuiyan and Meher, and grew up alongside four siblings: three sisters and one brother.

Bhuiyan received his primary education at Khas Hawla Government Primary School and later attended Parulia High School, where he completed his Secondary School Certificate (SSC). He then enrolled at Narsingdi Government College and completed his Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) in 1974.

Political career and criminal activities During the early 1970s, Bhuiyan operated as a far-left insurgent affiliated with the Proletarian Party of East Bengal (PBSP), an outlawed left-wing insurgent group. In 1976, he joined the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and was appointed as the president of its Narsingdi District branch.

In 1979, Bhuiyan was convicted for his involvement in the death of a truck driver who was killed during an exchange of gunfire with police. In subsequent years, he transitioned into organized crime, joining a criminal gang that executed armed robberies and homicides across multiple districts. Authorities ultimately filed 36 cases against him, comprising 34 murder charges, one robbery charge, and one weapons-related charge.

On 17 December 1991, Bhuiyan was arrested and incarcerated at the Manikganj District Jail. On 8 November 1992, he was convicted of robbery and sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment. On 19 September 1995, he received a 30-year sentence in a separate case involving charges of robbery and murder.

Following his accumulated convictions, Bhuiyan was initially sentenced to a total of 184 years in prison.

Executioner career In 1988, seeking to reduce his lengthy prison sentence, Bhuiyan volunteered to serve as an assistant hangman. Under Bangladeshi prison regulations, an executioner earned two months and four days of sentence remission for each hanging carried out. That same year, he participated in his first execution by assisting in the hanging of a convict named Nurul Islam at the Gafargaon facility. During the same year, he conducted his first execution as chief hangman by carrying out the death sentence of a convict named Hasan in the Daisy murder case.

Over the next two decades, Bhuiyan executed several high-profile convicts, political leaders, and militants. On 10 May 2004, he executed the serial killer Ershad Shikder at the Khulna District Jail. On 1 and 29 September 2004, he carried out the executions of police officers and accomplices involved in the Yasmin murder case in Rangpur and Dinajpur. On 29 March 2007, he executed top Islamist militant leaders, including Siddique ul-Islam (widely known as Bangla Bhai) and Ataur Rahman Sunny of the outlawed Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), who had orchestrated a 2005 nationwide bombing. On 28 January 2010, he performed the executions of five former military officers Bazlul Huda, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Syed Farooq-ur-Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, and AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, who were convicted of the 1975 assassination of Bangladesh's founding president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Bhuiyan later recounted in his memoir that one convict's vocal cords tore during the process, while another, who was paralyzed, had to be executed in a seated position. Between 2013 and 2016, he executed several prominent politicians and ministers of the Bangladesh convicted of war crimes during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War by the International Crimes Tribunal, including Abdul Quader Molla, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, and Mir Quasem Ali.

A significant discrepancy exists regarding Bhuiyan's total execution count. Official Bangladeshi prison records credited him with 26 executions, as domestic law capped the maximum sentence reduction achievable through execution duties at 10 years. Conversely, in his personal accounts and memoir, Bhuiyan claimed to have pulled the lever for up to 60 executions throughout his career across various regional facilities.

Release, later life, and memoir On 18 June 2023, Bhuiyan was released from Dhaka Central Jail after serving over 31 years of his commuted sentence. At the time of his release, prison authorities paid his accumulated legal fines of 10,000 BDT, and his overall sentence had been reduced by over ten years as a reward for his work as an executioner.

On 21 December 2023, the 73-year-old Bhuiyan married a 23-year-old woman named Sathi Akhter. In early 2024, the marriage ended after only 53 days, resulting in his wife leaving him and subsequently filing a dowry-related lawsuit against him, which led to further legal complications.

In February 2024, Bhuiyan published his autobiography, titled Kemon Chhilo Jollad Jibon (How was my life as a Hangman), at the Amar Ekushey Book Fair in Dhaka. The memoir garnered significant attention for its descriptions of execution rituals and the final moments of prominent political figures. During interviews at the book fair, Bhuiyan stated that his primary motivation for publishing his life story was to deter young people from resorting to crime.

Death On 24 June 2024, during the early hours of Monday morning, he began experiencing breathing difficulties and severe chest pain at his residence. At approximately 3:30 a.m., following the sudden onset of these symptoms, he was urgently transported and admitted to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital in Dhaka. His remains were officially released to his surviving sister. Subsequently, his body was transported back to his ancestral village of Isakhali of Narsingdi District for funeral. He was buried in his family graveyard.