Bangladesh, 1977 — military coup attempt

Event Summary

On 2 October 1977 non-commissioned officers and airmen of the Bangladesh Air Force, together with elements of the army Signal Corps, staged an attempted coup against President Ziaur Rahman, striking while the government was preoccupied with negotiations over a Japanese Red Army hijacking of a Japan Airlines flight forced down at Dhaka airport. The mutiny, led by Sergeant Afsar Ali Khan, a member of the Communist Party of East Bengal, followed a related revolt at Bogra two days earlier and aimed to assassinate Zia and install a Marxist government through a soldiers' revolutionary committee. The rebels attacked the president's house, briefly seized the Dhaka radio station, and proclaimed a revolution, while killing a number of air force officers.

But Zia survived, and loyal army units under commanders including Major General Manzoor crushed the uprising within hours, retaking the airport and radio station. The reprisals were ferocious: special military tribunals convicted vast numbers of soldiers and airmen, and by most accounts well over a thousand were executed by hanging or firing squad in the following weeks.