Major (retd) Md Muzaffar Hossain, who was detained on July 16, 2026, had been a fugitive for 45 years.

He was initially detained by the detective branch of police and later handed over to the army. Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed told the media that Muzaffar was set to be tried through a general court-martial under military law.

A week later, he was shown arrested at the International Crimes Tribunal in a crimes against humanity case linked to the July Uprising.

The report of the Inquiry Commission formed after the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman links the retired major to a specific incident. The report, which was not made public in 45 years, was recently obtained and published by The Daily Star.

The Inquiry Commission, which submitted its report in September 1981, said Muzaffar was involved in removing Zia’s body from the scene and concealing it.

Ziaur Rahman was assassinated in the early hours of May 30, 1981, in Chattogram Circuit House, during an attempted military coup.

Following the assassination, the rebels quickly exited the scene, leaving the president's body on the floor. At 8:30am, two army jeeps along with an army van, fixed with automatic weapons, rolled up to the Circuit House again.

Three majors and 10-15 sepoys got down and confronted two National Security Intelligence officers who were standing guard over the scene.

They took the two officers -- Abdus Sattar and Abul Kalam -- upstairs at gunpoint. Upon entering the president’s room, they were asked about the “secret papers” and the group began searching the room for the “papers” themselves, the Commission found.

The Commission had interviewed one of the NSI officers, then-Deputy Assistant Director Abdus Sattar.

They collected some personal belongings of the president and put them in one of his suitcases. “The suitcase and some other articles were brought down to the ground floor and the majors asked Abul Kalam to guard those and Abdus Sattar to go upstairs with them,” according to the report.

“The majors searched the other rooms and while they were doing so, Abdus Sattar was guarding the body of the president along with one major,” it says.

“One of them addressed another as ‘Major Muzaffar’, asking him to bring the bedsheets of the president. The body was first covered with a white bedsheet, and then another was used to wrap the body,” said the report.

The body was then brought down by the sepoys.

The rebels took away the body of the president and hastily buried it in a shallow grave on the slope of a hill by the side of Kaptai Road, in the Pathargata village.

The body would not be recovered until the fall of the rebels.

Click here to read The Daily Star’s report on the Inquiry Commission’s findings that were unveiled after 45 years.