Why Pakistan Army blames the 1971 debacle on the politicians?

SALEEM SAMAD

The outgoing Pakistan Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Qamar Javed Bajwa in one of the several farewells meetups categorically said “1971 was not a military, but a political failure. Our army fought courageously in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).”
He lamented that those fallen martyrs of the Pakistan Army were never honoured and people have forgotten them and politicians never mention their sacrifice.
He made a desperate attempt to “correct” the narrative of 1971 and stated facts regarding the debacle, and said the number of [Pakistan] soldiers fighting [in eastern war theatre] was not 92,000 but 34,000 while the others were in different government departments.
Quoting his speech he said, “Against these heavy odds, our army fought bravely and gave exemplary sacrifices which were acknowledged by Indian Army chief Field Marshal Manekshaw.”
By ‘against these heavy odds’, General Bajwa meant that 34,000 Pakistani soldiers were confronted by an Indian Army of 250,000 soldiers and 200,000 members of the Mukti Bahini.
Such mind-blogging narratives of Bajwa have also shaken the political and military historians in Pakistan.
Shouldn’t you feel that Gen Bajwa needs to update his knowledge of the political history leading to the liberation war in 1971 and the humiliating defeat of the marauding Pakistan armed forces in the eastern war theatre?
The brutal birth of Bangladesh experienced the genocide of three million, rape as a weapon of war of tens of thousands of women, and brutal murder of thousands of intellectuals committed by the occupation Pakistan military and their henchmen recruited to kill, torture, rape and of course loot to frustrate the war of independence.
When the dreadful ‘Operation Searchlight’ was launched at midnight on 25th March 1971 in Dhaka and later spread to the rest of the country, the Pakistan military perpetrated the genocidal campaign under the military dictator General Yahya Khan.
Apologetic General Shaheb was a school student in 1971. But while in the military academy and later when he was climbing the ladders of his career in Rawalpindi GHQ. he must have read the Justice Hamidoor Rahman Commission Report regarding the debacle in 1971.
He need not read any documents or books published in Bangladesh on the 1971 war. It is believed that he must have come across scores of books penned by senior military officers of Pakistan, as well as by Indians who were on the battleground.
Does any of the documents and books claim that it was a failure of the politicians? In the helms of affairs were senior military hawks in Rawalpindi GHQ along with the civil bureaucrats in Islamabad.
Pakistan was sans political government since 1958 and continued till 1972. A political government took charge after an election in 1977 under a fresh constitution.
Pakistan lived under military rule since 1958 when General Ayub Khan led a bloodless coup and became the self-styled President of the country. He abrogated the 1956 historic constitution and accused many senior and junior ministers of the United Front mostly from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) of corruption and were tried in kangaroo military courts.
The 1970 elections, incidentally were held under a Martial Law regime, which arbitrarily denied the handover of political power to an elected majoritarian party Awami League.
Therefore the outgoing Pakistan COAS blaming the debacle on the shoulders of politicians was from his fairytale dream.
The military hawks in Rawalpindi were the mastermind of the crackdown and was cleared from the headquarters of the Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA), according to Major General Khadim Hussain Raja’s book ‘A Stranger In My Own Country’.
The book describes that during January and early February 1971, military dictator General Yahya had visualised the possibility of a military crackdown accompanied by the suspension of all political activity.
The top commanders in Dhaka had the opinion that it would be sheer ‘lunacy’ to attempt the operation at that time.
On 27 February 1971, Gen Raja gave formal orders to brigade commanders to be prepared for Operation Blitz into action.
Soon both Lieutenant General Yaqub Khan and Admiral S.M. Ahsan were denied access to President Yahya when he arrived in Dhaka for a series of parleys, primarily with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The two top brasses Admiral S.M. Ahsan, Governor of East Pakistan and Lieutenant General Yaqub Khan, Commander of the Eastern Command in Dhaka were unceremoniously removed by Rawalpindi GHQ for dilly-dally in executing the crackdown.
The duo instead appealed to President Yahya to forget about the “military solution” to the political impasse and hold dialogue with Sheikh Mujib, chief of Awami League to discuss the Six-Point, which was found scribed in the ‘Strategy, Diplomacy, Humanity: Life and Work of Sahabzada Yaqub’ as a threat to security and sovereignty of Pakistan.
He states that “I am convinced there is no military solution, which can make sense in the present situation. I am consequently unable to accept the responsibility for implementing a mission namely, a military solution, that would mean civil war and large-scale killings of unarmed civilians and would achieve no sane aim. It would have disastrous consequences,” Sahabzada Yaqub concluded.
The military hawks, according to Brigadier A. R. Siddiqi’s book ‘East Pakistan the Endgame’ understands that in March, the Rawalpindi was growing impatient for the delay of the crackdown.
The military dictator angry with General Yakub replaced him and appointed Lieutenant General Tikka Khan, who was known as the “Butcher of Balochistan”. The message of the replacement was loud and clear.
In midst of the dialogue, the infamous Operation Searchlight was launched. Several historians explain that military hawks kept in mind the dreadful operation and the parley was a ploy.
The plan for Operation Searchlight was quickly adopted by Yahya Khan and implemented when he was still in Dhaka. How can Bajwa attribute the humiliating defeat to a “political failure”?

First published in The News Times, November 28, 2022
Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Pakistan’s desperate attempt to come closer to Bangladesh

File photo: Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (left), and her counterpart Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan

SALEEM SAMAD

"Bilateral synergy between Bangladesh and Pakistan remains a work in progress"

For most journalists, columnists, and academicians in Pakistan, when they write or speak on Bangladesh affairs, it could be understood that they are bashing India and trying to appease Bangladesh by stating or using the term “brotherly Muslim” country.

The Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated about the delinquent Indian press in undermining the relations of the two neighbours. The government could have warned equally about the Pakistan media writing provocative articles and commentaries that Bangladesh has realized after almost 50 years that India is no friend of Bangladesh, and is instead tilting towards China.

A Pakistani columnist Inam Ul Haque in The Express Tribune has written: “Taking a leaf from post-war European history would do well for both brotherly Muslim countries.”

Bangladesh, even after almost half-a-century, has not forgotten the marauding Pakistan Army launched a “jihad war” against the people. 

Thus, the broadcast of Radio Pakistan aptly said that the people of Bangladesh are “kafirs” and “gaddhars” (traitors) and have joined hands with their arch enemy, the Hindu-India.

Pakistan must backtrack their statement of officially declaring the people of Bangladesh as “kafirs” and traitors which gave them the moral legitimacy to commit genocide and rape as a weapon of war.

An estimated 10 million refugees fled Bangladesh and trekked into neighbouring states of India. They fled when their villages and towns were raided. Their relatives and neighbours were slaughtered by the Pakistan Army and their Islamic henchmen.

The plunders and arson of villages and bazaars and desecrating places of worship, and the genocide by Islamist militia -- these narratives are documented in the history of the Liberation War.

The Pakistan media put up stories on the first page regarding Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s telephone tete-a-tete with his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina.

Both Bangladesh and Pakistan’s official statements did not mention that Imran Khan wanted to convince Bangladesh to support Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. PM Hasina in three words silenced Khan when she stated that Kashmir is “India’s internal affair.” Full stop.

What Pakistan media will not publish was that Bangladesh reiterated that Pakistan should provide a public apology to the war crimes committed during the Liberation War.

Barrister Tania Amir says that Bangladesh should muster support from friendly countries to hold Islamabad responsible for flouting the historic 1974 Tripartite Agreement signed in New Delhi which released 93,000 prisoners of war (POW).

In Clause 13 of the agreement jointly signed by the foreign ministers of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan regarding the governments for reconciliation, peace, and friendship in the sub-continent, “the 195 Pakistani prisoners of war should be held to account and subjected to the due process of law.”

However, the Pakistan minister of defense and foreign affairs in the agreement said that “his government condemned and deeply regretted any crimes that may have been committed.”

Former Foreign Minister Dr Kamal Hossain, a signatory of the agreement in Clause 13, stated that the manifold crimes committed by POWs constituted, according to the relevant provisions of the UN General Assembly Resolutions and International Law, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, and that there was universal consensus that persons charged with such crimes as the 195 Pakistani POWs should be held to account and subject to the due process of law.

The Tripartite Agreement stated that the 195 listed as war criminals will face court-martial under the Manual of Pakistan Military Laws (MPML), 1957.

In the home front, during a live discussion over a TV channel on the relationship between India and Bangladesh and the recent developments in regards to Pakistan, Foreign Minister Abdul Momen said the recent tensions between India and China were impacting ties with Bangladesh of both the nations, and he asserted that both India and China were its “neighbours” and that both the nations always had a big heart for Bangladesh.

Pakistan and Bangladesh need to realize that bilateral synergy can bring tremendous good to their people, wrote columnist Inam Ul Haque in The Express Tribune. Political observers merely scoffed at such wild ideas. 

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 24 August 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com.  Twitter @saleemsamad

Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin: Killer?

CHRIS BLACKBURN

ON SUNDAY, the British broadsheet The Daily Mail, reported that Bangladeshi prosecution investigators connected to the International Crime Tribunals-Bangladesh had finished their investigations into the suspected war crimes of Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman Khan. After the Liberation War of 1971, both men escaped the newly formed state of Bangladesh looking for shelter in the West. Mueen-Uddin went to the United Kingdom and Khan to the United States.

The pair had allegations of war crimes, torture and murder hanging over them, however they managed to build successful lives in their self-imposed exiles. They had both been sucked into the politics o­­­f Jamaat-i-Islami in their youths. They like many others had fallen under the spell of Maulana al-Mawdudi, one of the most prominent Islamist ideologues and practitioners of modern Jihad. Mawdudi believed in the supremacy of his party and their beliefs. Mawdudi believed that all forms of governance, unless his party were in leadership, were un-Islamic. Khan and Mueen-Uddin had been active in Jamaat politics in Bangladesh.

When Bengali nationalists led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman demanded political autonomy and freedom in 1971 the West Pakistani regime demanded they be quashed. Jamaat was used by the Pakistani regime to setup paramilitary death squads to punish those that supported independence. The tribunals in Dhaka believe that Khan and Mueen-Uddin were the ring leaders in these heinous acts of barbarity.

In the winter of 1979, a young Saudi travelled to Pakistan meet with the Amir, the leader, of Pakistan’s most organised religious political party, the Jamaat-i-Islami. The Saudi Embassy had sent a message to Qazi Hossain Ahmed to tell him that a bright, focussed believer was heading their way. His mission was to bring money and support for the Afghan Jihad. Pakistan and the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) had used Pakistan’s religious parties for the jihad. The Jamaat-i-Islami had rallied the Muslim world to the Jihad which was called after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. The young Saudi was called Osama bin Laden and this was the start of a three decade relationship with the Jamaat movement in South Asia which has had severe implications for the rest of the world.

After the Soviet Jihad, Bin Laden tried to help setup the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) with the help of Jamaat. It was an Islamic coalition designed to stop the rise of the Pakistani People’s Party (PPP). It has been alleged in Pakistan’s Supreme Court that the Mehran Bank was used by the ISI to help fund the coalition. Bin Laden became part of Pakistan’s political furniture.

Jamaat leaders also went to meet with bin Laden while he was in exile in Sudan during the 1990s. Jamaat has publicly rallied for Jihad funds for numerous conflicts. Jamaat have also been accused of helping to fan conflicts way beyond Pakistan. In the early 1990’s Jamaat was helping young Uighurs to come for religious training in Lahore, Pakistan. They were diverted to militant camps instead. The Chinese, Russian, Iranian and Indian governments complained about the covert, yet transparent funding of foreign mercenaries by Pakistan and Jamaat. Russia’s Supreme Court blacklisted Jamaat for supplying funds to mercenaries and jihadi fighters.

In 1979, while the Jihad was raging in Afghanistan, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, was now living in London, forging his career with other Jamaati figures that had sought refuge away from South Asia. They setup front organisations such as the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, United Kingdom Islamic Mission (UKIM), East London Mosque, and Dawatul Islam. Mueen-Uddin would later play a role in helping Bin Laden and Jamaat’s relationship to cause more human tragedy in South-East Asia.

While in exile, Chowdhury Mueen Uddin build his career in Jamaat’s diasporic politics. He become a trustee and treasurer of Muslim Aid, the UK’s largest Muslim charity. He would also become the Chairman of the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, which was founded by Prof. Khurshid Ahmed, a Pakistani leader and senior politician in Jamaat-i-Islami. The aim of the foundation was to stop the secularisation of Muslims that had moved to the UK from the Indian subcontinent. It was also used to push the thought of Mawdudi in Europe.

I have previously written about Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin’s involvement in the financing of an al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah front called KOMPAK in Indonesia. KOMPAK helped to setup military camps, funnel arms and explosives to militants and was visited by al-Qaeda leaders such as the late Omar Faruq, one of Bin Laden’s key lieutenants and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new leader of al-Qaeda. ABC News Australia commissioned an expose into the links of Muslim Aid and KOMPAK. The Australian leaders said it was a mistake, however it was later uncovered that Muslim Aid and Jamaat fronts continued with their financing of the Jemaah Islamiyah charity.

The financing of KOMPAK by Muslim Aid had started in 1998. In 2000, Muhammed Hafidz, one of the directors of KOMPAK came on a European Tour to highlight atrocities committed during the sectarian conflicts in the Molucca Islands, Indonesia. He also came looking for donations. He visited Muslim Aid offices, Amnesty International and Muslime Helfen (Muslim Aid Germany). Three years later, Hafidz would be arrested for giving safe haven to two of the Bali bomb makers, Umar Besar (aka. Wayan and Abdul Ghoni) and Sarjiyo (aka. Zaenal Abidin and Sawad). They were staying in his apartment building in the Limus Estate in Bogor, West Java when counter-terrorism officers raided the premises. Hafidz was arrested as part of the crackdown on Jemaah Islamiyah operatives in April, 2003. However, he was later released due to lack of evidence. Some of his fellow directors of KOMPAK weren’t so lucky. They were charged with terrorism related offences and are still in prison for being affiliated with al-Qaeda.

It isn’t the first time Muslim Aid has been accused of supporting Islamic causes and terrorism. Andrew Gilligan of The Daily Telegraph has chronicled the charities support for Hamas. This isn’t a surprise as Jamaat politicians and leaders from Bangladesh and Pakistan have all professed their admiration for Hamas and other groups. Muslim Aid is staffed by those affiliated with Jamaat politics, so it couldn’t come as a surprise when they are accused of funneling money to jihadi causes when their brothers, leaders even, in Pakistan and elsewhere are calling for it publicly.

Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin case isn’t just confined to the politics of Bangladesh. His whole career needs to be investigated fully. His career from suspected war criminal to suspected terrorist financier needs to be investigated by British authorities as a priority of national importance and security.

First published in e-Bangladesh.com, October 15, 2012

Leading British Muslim leader faces war crimes charges in Bangladesh

Photo: Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, left, with the Prince of Wales at the Markfield Islamic Foundation, Leics

One of Britain's most important Muslim leaders is to be charged with war crimes, investigators and officials have told The Sunday Telegraph

ANDREW GILLIGAN, Dhaka

Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, director of Muslim spiritual care provision in the NHS, a trustee of the major British charity Muslim Aid and a central figure in setting up the Muslim Council of Britain, fiercely denies any involvement in a number of abductions and "disappearances" during Bangladesh's independence struggle in the 1970s.

He says the claims are "politically-motivated" and false.

However, Mohammad Abdul Hannan Khan, the chief investigator for the country's International Crimes Tribunal, said: "There is prima facie evidence of Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin being involved in a series of killings of intellectuals.

"We have made substantial progress in the case against him. There is no chance that he will not be indicted and prosecuted. We expect charges in June."

Mr Mueen-Uddin could face the death penalty if convicted.

Bangladesh's Law and Justice Minister, Shafique Ahmed, said: "He was an instrument of killing intellectuals. He will be charged, for sure."

For 25 years after independence from Britain, the country now known as Bangladesh was part of Pakistan, even though the two halves were a thousand miles apart with India between them. In 1971, Bangla resentment at the "colonial" nature of Pakistani rule broke out into a full-scale revolt.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians were massacred by Pakistani troops.

Mr Mueen-Uddin, then a journalist on the Purbodesh newspaper in Dhaka, was a member of a fundamentalist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, which supported Pakistan in the war. In the closing days, as it became clear that Pakistan had lost, he is accused of being part of a collaborationist Bangla militia, the Al-Badr Brigade, which rounded up, tortured and killed prominent citizens to deprive the new state of its intellectual and cultural elite.

The widow of one such victim, Dolly Chaudhury, claims to have identified Mr Mueen-Uddin as one of three men who abducted her husband, Mufazzal Haider Chaudhury, a prominent scholar of Bengali literature, on the night of 14 December 1971.

"I was able to identify one [of the abductors], Mueen-Uddin," she said in video testimony, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, which will form part of the prosecution case.

"He was wearing a scarf but my husband pulled it down as he was taken away. When he was a student, he often used to go to my brother in law's house. My husband, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, we all recognised that man."

Professor Chaudhury was never seen again.

Also among the as yet untested testimony is the widow of another victim, who claims that Mr Mueen-Uddin was in the group that abducted her husband, Sirajuddin Hussain, another journalist, from their home on the night of 10 December 1971.

"There was no doubt that he was the person involved in my husband's abduction and killing," said Noorjahan Seraji. One of the other members of the group, who was caught soon afterwards, allegedly gave Mr Mueen-Uddin's name in his confession.

Another reporter on Purbodesh, Ghulam Mostafa, also disappeared.

The vanished journalist's brother, Dulu, said he appealed to Mr Mueen-Uddin for help and was taken around the main Pakistani Army detention and torture centres by Mr Mueen-Uddin. Dulu Mostafa said that Mr Mueen-Uddin appeared to be well known at the detention centres, gained easy admission to the premises and was saluted by the Pakistani guards as he entered. Ghulam was never found.

Mr Mueen-Uddin's then editor at the paper, Atiqur Rahman, said that Mr Mueen-Uddin had been the first journalist in the country to reveal the existence of the Al-Badr Brigade and had demonstrated intimate knowledge of its activities.

After his colleagues disappeared, he said, Mr Mueen-Uddin had asked for his home address. Fearing that he too would be abducted, the editor gave a fake address. Mr Rahman's name, complete with the fake address, appeared on a Al-Badr death list found just after the end of the war.

"I gave that address only to Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, and when that list appeared it was obvious that he had given that address to Al Badr," Mr Rahman said in statements given to the investigators.

"I'm sure I gave the address to no-one else."

Mr Rahman then published a front-page story and picture about Mr Mueen-Uddin, who had by that stage left the city, naming him as involved in "disappearances."

This brought forward two further witnesses, Mushtaqur and Mahmudur Rahman, who claim they recognised the picture as somebody who had been part of an armed group looking for the BBC correspondent in Dhaka during the abductions. The group was unsuccessful because the BBC man had gone into hiding.

Toby Cadman, Mr Mueen-Uddin's lawyer, said on Saturday: "No formal allegations have been put to Mr Mueen-Uddin and therefore it is not appropriate to issue any formal response. Any and all allegations that Mr Mueen-Uddin committed or participated in any criminal conduct during the Liberation War of 1971 that have been put in the past will continue to be strongly denied in their entirety.

"For the Chief Investigator to be making such public comment raises serious questions as to the integrity of the investigation. The Chief Investigator will be aware that the decision as to the bringing of charges is made by the Prosecutor and not an investigator.

"Therefore, the comments by the Chief Investigator are highly improper and serves as a further basis for raising the question as to whether a fair trial may be guaranteed before the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh.

"The statement by the Bangladesh Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs is a clear declaration of guilt and in breach of the presumption of innocence."

Since moving to the UK in the early 1970s, Mr Mueen-Uddin has taken British citizenship and built a successful career as a community activist and Muslim leader.

In 1989 he was a key leader of protests against the Salman Rushdie book, The Satanic Verses.

Around the same time he helped to found the extremist Islamic Forum of Europe, Jamaat-e-Islami's European wing, which believes in creating a sharia state in Europe and in 2010 was accused by a Labour minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, of infiltrating the Labour Party.

Tower Hamlets' directly-elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman, was expelled from Labour for his close links with the IFE.

Until 2010 Mr Mueen-Uddin was vice-chairman of the controversial East London Mosque, controlled by the IFE, in which capacity he greeted Prince Charles when the heir to the throne opened an extension to the mosque. He was also closely involved with the Muslim Council of Britain, which has been dominated by the IFE.

He was chairman and remains a trustee of the IFE-linked charity, Muslim Aid, which has a budget of £20 million. He has also been closely involved in the Markfield Institute, the key institution of Islamist higher education in the UK.

The International Crimes Tribunal, a new body set up to try alleged "war criminals" from the 1971 war, has already begun trying some Bangladesh-based leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami.

Trials were originally supposed to start soon after the war but were cancelled by the military after a coup.

The new tribunal was welcomed by most Bangladeshis and international human rights groups as finally bringing justice and closure for the massive abuses suffered by civilians in 1971.

However, it is now subject to growing international criticism. Human Rights Watch said that the ICT's proceedings "fall short of international standards" with a "failure to ensure due process" and "serious concerns about the impartiality of the bench."

"The chairman of the tribunal was formerly one of the investigators," said Abdur Razzaq, lead counsel for the defence.

"As chairman, he will be pronouncing on an investigation report he himself produced."

The law minister, Mr Ahmed, denied this. Mr Razzaq described the tribunal as "vendetta politics" by Bangladesh's ruling Awami League against its political opponents.

Any trial of Mr Mueen-Uddin would also be fraught with practical difficulties. There is no extradition treaty between Britain and Bangladesh and the UK does not extradite in death penalty cases. Many of the witnesses are elderly and some have died.

However, Mr Hannan Khan said that Mr Mueen-Uddin was likely to be tried in absentia if he did not return.

"We have a duty to bring alleged perpetrators to justice," he said.

"They must know the fear, however long ago it was. What happened here forty years ago is on the conscience of the world."

"I have waited 40 years to see the trial of the war criminals," said the widow, Noorjahan Seraji.

"I have not spent a single night without suffering and I want justice."

First published in The Sunday Telegraph, London, UK, 15 April, 2012

Bangladesh war crimes suspect escapes police dragnet

SALEEM SAMAD

BANGLADESH MOST-WANTED war crimes suspect escaped police dragnet and flees to India on his final destination to Pakistan.

Home minister Shahara Khatun on Tuesday told reporters that the authority will seek help from Interpol to arrest suspect Abul Kalam Azad aka 'Bachchu Razakar'.

Quoting close relatives of Azad, elite anti-crime forces Rapid Action Battalion on Monday at late night press meet told that he had left Dhaka on Mar. 30 and fled to India on Apr. 2.

The country’s International Crimes Tribunal issued arrest warrant for Azad on Apr. 2 for his alleged involvement with crimes against humanity committed in Faridpur, in the west of capital Dhaka during the bloody war of independence in 1971.

Meanwhile, elite police forces detained two sons and a brother-in-law of Azad for obstruction of justice and abetting the fugitive war crimes suspect to flee the country. They are being grilled by police.

The 64 year old Azad was described by war crimes investigators as henchman of marauding Pakistan army responsible for genocide of millions, sexual abuse of Hindu women and torching villages suspected for harboring guerillas.

Azad is accused for abduction, murder and missing of scores of pro-independence supporters. He was an accomplice of jailed Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed, leader of Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami also charged with crime against humanity.

Only recently, Azad was a popular TV host of Islamic program. A Muslim evangelist had often travelled abroad including United States advocating for converting a pro-secular Bangladesh into an Islamic state and implementation of Sharia laws, a strict Islamic code.

Saleem Samad, an Ashoka Fellow in journalism, is a Bangladesh based award winning investigative reporter. He is student of Islamic militancy, forced migration, good governance, press freedom and elective democracy. He was twice detained and tortured. Once in 1982 and second in 2002. Later he was expelled in 2004 from Bangladesh for whistle-blowing of the arrival of Jihadists from international terror network. He recently returned home from Canada. His email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com