MOHAMMAD
A. ARAFAT
Bangladesh won its
independence from Pakistan in 1971, but at a terrible price. Pakistan didn’t
just oppose Bangladeshi liberation on the battlefield. It unleashed one of the
most shameful genocides of the 20th century on ethnic Bengali citizens with the
help of local extremist groups. As many as three million Bengalis were killed
in just nine months and more than two hundred thousand women were raped and
tortured.
As is the case with war
crimes elsewhere, many decades later those responsible for the massacre are
finally being brought to justice. In 2009, a domestic War Crimes Tribunal
(ICT-BD) was established in Bangladesh to investigate and prosecute those
accused of crimes against humanity.
Bangladesh’s war crimes
victims deserve justice and so do their families. The passing of time cannot
wipe away the horrors of that period even though many of those responsible for
mass murder have avoided justice, some by taking refuge in foreign countries.
Others have even worked their way into the country’s political establishment.
The purpose of the tribunal
is to set right this great wrong. Over the past year, it and a second tribunal
have heard evidence against two accused ringleaders of the genocide — Motiur
Rahman Nizami and Delwar Hossain Sayeedi. The evidence against both is
extensive, compelling and ghastly.
If they are found guilty,
they likely will hang, as the death penalty is still part of Bangladeshi law.
Verdicts may come at any time.
Nizami is not just an
accused killer. He is also the head of Jamaat-e-Islami, an extremist group
responsible for a wave of murder and violence across Bangladesh during the past
year. Its attacks have resulted in 500 deaths. Jamaat has deep roots in the
region going back to its collaboration with the Pakistani military during
Bangladesh’s war for independence. Back then, Jamaat launched the fearsome
paramilitary group called Al-Badr, which were death squads similar to Adolph
Hitler’s SS during World War II.
Jamaat, in essence, it is a
domestic terror organization with a political arm. It has worked since
Bangladesh’s independence to destroy the country’s pluralistic constitutional
democracy and to replace it with a primitive version of Sharia law.
Nizami faces 16 counts of
crimes against humanity including genocide, murder, torture, rape and property
destruction, all of which are based on eyewitness accounts. As Al-Badr’s chief
leader during the genocide, Nizami is accused of either personally carrying out
or ordering the deaths of nearly 600 ethnic Bengalis as well as the rape and
the torture of many women.
Some of
the worst atrocities came at the infamous Mohammadpur Physical Training
Institute in Dhaka, which was a human abattoir reminiscent of Nazi death camps.
An entire of generation of
Bangladesh’s best minds were wiped out at the Institute, tribunal prosecutors
charge, because Nizami and other collaborators devised a systematic plan to
torture and execute professors, engineers, artists and scientists. The plan was
that if Pakistan could not prevent Bangladesh’s independence, it would seek to
cripple the young state in its infancy by destroying its top intellectuals.
First published in The Daily Caller, 09 May, 2014
Mohammad A. Arafat, Executive Director, Shuchinta
Foundation
