In the short and blood-drenched political history of Bangladesh, one night still stands out in the national memory. On Aug. 15, 1975, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the country's first Prime Minister and President, was murdered in his home in Dhaka along with 15 members of his family. Rahman was found with 20 bullet wounds--his pipe still clenched in his right hand. His killers later said they had wanted to "save the country" from his corrupt and authoritarian rule.

Mujib's daughter, Sheik Hasina Wazed, was in Germany at the time, an absence that saved her life. For two decades she has dedicated herself to vindicating her father's name and avenging his murder. In June, Hasina became Prime Minister after her Awami League Party won national elections. But she is discovering that vengeance doesn't come easily in a land where political change, until recently, has been accompanied by bullets and blood.

The coup in which Mujib died was organized by a group of junior Bangladeshi army officers who have not been shy about their deed 21 years ago. Immediately after Mujib's death, the government installed after the coup passed an ordinance protecting the involved soldiers from prosecution. In 1979 President Ziaur Rahman had that law included in the country's constitution, but sent the 14 men into temporary exile in Libya. Subsequently, the officers were offered jobs in Bangladesh's foreign service in an attempt to scatter them safely around the globe. Twelve accepted, taking postings in such far-flung places as Algeria, Argentina, Canada, China and Senegal.

Hasina, who lived for two decades in the house where her family was slaughtered, carefully maintaining the bloodstains and bullet holes in the walls, wants those men back. In one of her first actions as Prime Minister, she sacked the six coup plotters still in the foreign service and ordered them home. Only one complied; the other five are said to have gone into hiding abroad. Last week she had three of the main conspirators, including the recently returned diplomat, arrested in Dhaka. Two days later she called a national day of mourning on the anniversary of her father's death, the first such observance in 21 years.

Hasina said in a recent interview, "The nation wants the killers to be punished," and public opinion is overwhelmingly in her favor. "There has to be a trial of the killers of Sheik Mujibur Rahman," insists Rirajul Islam Chowdhury, a Dhaka University teacher, "or else it will remain as an assault on the consciousness of the nation." But the law is a major stumbling block. The three former officers were first arrested last week for subversion of national security. However, police later filed a minor charge of illegal weapons possession. Hasina can't prosecute them for murder unless she changes the constitution, and her Awami League doesn't have the necessary strength in Parliament. The 1975 ordinance does, however, contain an interesting technicality: the coup participants were required to apply for certificates proving their involvement and, therefore, clinching their pardons--but apparently few took the trouble. If Hasina gets vengeance after 21 years, it may trickle through a legal loophole.

--Reported by Farid Hossain/Dhaka