Ershad Sikder was a Khulna city ward commissioner who led a gang that operated around the city's river port. Between his surrender to the police in August 1999 and his execution in May 2004, Khulna courts convicted him in a series of murder cases. The best documented is the killing of Khalid Hossain, a Jubo League leader, in May 1999. A second, the killing of Joynal Sheikh in 1998, is also on record. Khulna jail records in April 2004 counted death sentences in 6 of 17 murder cases, life terms in 5 more and 20 cases still pending.
His name appears in the Bangladeshi press under several spellings: Sikder, Shikder, Shikdar and Sikdar. Most of the victims in his many cases are not named on the public record, and only two killings can be followed from charge to verdict.
Sikder came from Madarghona, a village in Nalchhity upazila of Jhalakathi district, and made his career in Khulna. The Daily Star reported at the time of his execution that his grandfather, Hafiz Sikder, had been convicted in a dacoity case and died in jail in the Pakistan period, and that his father, Bande Ali Shikder, had been sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for killing a man in the village and also died in jail.
He had a first wife, three sons and a daughter, who were among the family allowed to visit him in his last days. His sister and an elder brother led one side of a family dispute over his property in 2004.
Sikder's rise ran through party politics. A column in the Daily Star Magazine by Mustafa Zaman, published days before the execution, summarized his career this way: he joined the Jatiya Party during the government of Hussein Muhammad Ershad and was elected commissioner of Ward 21 of the Khulna City Corporation, kept the seat after that government fell, joined the BNP in 1991, and moved to the Awami League after it took office in 1996. The column gave 1997 as the year he joined the Awami League and said that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as party president, issued an order expelling him that year once his activities began to draw press attention. It said he held the commissioner's post until his arrest. The Himalayan Times, reporting the execution from Khulna, likewise described him as linked over about 25 years to the Jatiya Party, the BNP and the Awami League, and said the Awami League expelled him and had him arrested in 1999. The claims of police protection and of payments to politicians remained allegations; no court ruled on them.
According to the same column, his business centered on control of the Khulna river port, where he was said to have removed rivals. His sister, quoted in it, said that after his arrest he spent large sums on politicians, journalists, police officers and businessmen in an effort to win his release, and that none of those she approached helped. The column states that no investigation followed. The Himalayan Times quoted a former bodyguard as telling police that Sikder ordered a number of killings and in some cases carried them out himself.
After a clash with a group backed by the ruling party at the river port, the Daily Star Magazine column said, Sikder went into hiding. He surrendered to Sonadanga police in Khulna on August 11, 1999, after talks with local ruling-party figures failed; his relatives said party leaders had advised him to give himself up and promised an early release.
Joynal Sheikh was killed in Khulna in 1998. A case was filed at Sonadanga police station in October 1999, two months after the surrender, and the police filed charges in January 2000. Judge Hasan Imam of the special court in Khulna heard it. In 2001 he sentenced one of Sikder's associates, J.F., to death and another, L.L., to life imprisonment. The High Court Division upheld both sentences.
On a Saturday reported by the Daily Star on November 1, 2004, six months after Sikder's execution, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, composed of Justice Ruhul Amin and Justice Tofazzal Hossain, acquitted J.F. and L.L. of murdering Joynal Sheikh. Sikder himself was recorded as "also a death convict in the case." The acquittal belongs to the two associates alone; the stage at which Sikder's own sentence in this case stood when he was executed is not on record.
In January 2000 the government set up a special court in Khulna to speed up the trials of Sikder and his accomplices, and assigned Additional District and Sessions Judge Hasan Imam to try all the cases against him. The Daily Star, reporting on its opening day, January 25, 2000, described three cases before the courts.
In the Jainal Khan murder case, at its first stage, Sikder was produced before the special court. A former officer in charge of Khulna police station, the investigating officer, testified against him, as did the victim's mother. Accused alongside Sikder in that case, according to the report, were five associates, among them a man who later appeared as a government approver. The chief bodyguard was also produced.
In the Khalid murder case, heard in the court of the District and Sessions Judge, Sikder and 16 others were produced and the court accepted the charges framed against them for the killing of Khalid Hossain, a Jubo League leader, in the previous year. The next hearing was fixed for February 6. In a third case, over the killing of a man named Jahangir, the Detective Branch of the Khulna Metropolitan Police had submitted a charge sheet naming Sikder and five others.
At the same hearing a witness, N.A., was brought to court from Satkhira jail in handcuffs and described as an eyewitness to 23 killings attributed to Sikder. He grew angry on seeing Sikder in the courtroom without handcuffs. No court made a finding on that figure.
Khalid Hossain was a Jubo League leader, the youth wing of the Awami League, in Khulna. The Daily Star gave the night of May 16, 1999 as the time of the killing in its reports in April and May 2004. An earlier report, on the Appellate Division's ruling in December 2003, gave the date as May 15, and said that Sikder and his accomplices killed him in Khulna.
The special court sentenced Sikder to death on April 30, 2000. Two of his accomplices, J.F. and L.L., were each given seven years in prison in the same case, and the Appellate Division upheld those sentences.
The High Court Division confirmed Sikder's death sentence on January 28, 2003. On December 9, 2003 the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld it. The Daily Star noted at the time that he could still file a review, and if that was rejected, a petition for mercy to the President. His lawyers in the appeal were the advocates Abdul Malek and Khandakar Mahbub Hossain; for the government, the Deputy Attorney General Abdur Rezzak Khan and Helal Uddin Molla appeared. In the same report the newspaper wrote that he stood accused in 21 more murder cases and already had six death sentences in as many cases.
The Daily Star reported on April 8, 2004 the review petition had been dismissed and that the Supreme Court's letter, posted to the Khulna District Jail superintendent on April 4, had not yet arrived. Two armed guards had been placed inside his cell. On April 9, 2004 he petitioned the President to commute his sentence to life imprisonment. The Daily Star reported on April 20 that President Iajuddin Ahmed had rejected the petition "yesterday," and the report of April 21 added that the jail superintendent, Farhad Mia, had set the execution for May 10 under the jail code.
The April 21 report described the sentencing history as the Khulna jail's records gave it: Sikder had received the death penalty in 6 of 17 murder cases and life terms in 5, and 20 further cases were pending. The jail sources said he would be the 373rd person executed since independence and the second at Khulna District Jail.
On April 23 the Daily Star reported that jail guards had sounded an alarm that officials called a practice drill, although unconfirmed sources said it reflected fears of unrest among inmates, and that police deployment around the jail had been increased. At that point a jail official said that he had not yet been told the date. The superintendent had said that for security he would be informed two hours before.
By the Daily Star's account on the morning of May 10, 2004, preparations were complete. Six platoons of Special Armed Forces had been deployed, and the roads near the jail were closed from 6:00 a.m. that day until 6:00 a.m. the next. Medical checks had been made every three hours since the Saturday before, and he had been given special food. His first wife, three sons, a daughter and his mother-in-law were allowed to visit him for the last time.
His first wife told the press that she had received telephone threats from callers, and in the days after the execution she said the family had split into two groups over his property, one led by her and the other by his sister and elder brother. The outcome of that dispute is not on record.
Sikder was executed in Khulna District Jail at one minute past midnight at the end of Monday, May 10, 2004. The Daily Star dated the report May 10 and described it as Monday night; the Himalayan Times, writing on the next day, gave the date as May 11. The Daily Star Magazine noted that by the usual count the time fell on Tuesday.
The totals attached to Sikder's name have never agreed.
The Daily Star Magazine column said he was convicted of killing 24 people and that his past was linked to about 50 killings. The Himalayan Times said he was indicted in 57 murder cases, convicted in 24 killings and believed to have killed at least 57 people. The jail records the Daily Star cited on April 21, 2004 count 6 death sentences in 17 cases and life terms in 5. The column elsewhere says the local court convicted him in seven murder cases. These figures do not agree with one another, and none of them can be matched case by case with named victims. Only two killings can be: those of Khalid Hossain and Joynal Sheikh. In the Daily Star's April 2004 coverage the Khalid Hossain case is the one for which he was executed.
A further case concerned Aziz Chaklader, killed in 1998. According to the Financial Express in 2020, a police charge sheet said he was killed at Sikder's direction. Sikder was one of seven people named by police in 2002, and two of them were acquitted. The Dhaka court that gave its verdict on September 21, 2020 sentenced one man to death and another to life imprisonment, and acquitted two others. No verdict against Sikder, executed in 2004, is on record in that case.
Z.S., a convicted associate of Sikder, was arrested in Khulna in September 2026 after 27 years in hiding, the Dhaka Tribune reported. He had been convicted of murder in a 1999 case filed at Rupsha police station and given life imprisonment with hard labor, and five years for a second offense in the same case. The victim in that case is not named on the record.
After the execution, Sikder's family split over his property, with his sister and elder brother on one side and his first wife on the other. In a column on the case, Mustafa Zaman argued that Sikder's career showed how politicians and police had shielded a criminal and that those who profited from his crimes were never held to account. That is an opinion, not a finding.
The Daily Star's jail sources counted him as the second person executed at Khulna District Jail.
1998: Joynal Sheikh is killed in Khulna.
May 16, 1999 (May 15 in one report): Khalid Hossain, a Jubo League leader, is killed in Khulna.
August 11, 1999: Sikder surrenders to Sonadanga police.
October 1999: a case over Joynal Sheikh's killing is filed at Sonadanga police station.
January 25, 2000: a special court opens in Khulna to try the cases against Sikder and his associates.
April 30, 2000: a Khulna special court sentences him to death for the killing of Khalid Hossain.
2001: the special court sentences two associates in the Joynal Sheikh case.
January 28, 2003: the High Court Division confirms his death sentence.
December 9, 2003: the Appellate Division upholds it.
Early 2004 (reported April 8): the Supreme Court dismisses his review petition.
April 9, 2004: he petitions the President for commutation to life imprisonment.
April 19, 2004: the President rejects the petition (reported April 20).
May 10, 2004: executed at Khulna District Jail at one minute past midnight at the end of the day.
October 30, 2004 (reported November 1): the Appellate Division acquits two associates of murdering Joynal Sheikh.