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Download PDF Razakars in Keraniganj killed hundreds of locals including three freedom fighters on orders of four Jamaat-e-Islami leaders including Motiur Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid, said freedom fighter Mozaffar Ahmed Khan.
Mozaffar is complainant of the much talked about case filed on Monday against Jamaat leaders. According to him, 13 people including Jamaat Ameer Nizami, Secretary General Mojahid, Senior Assistant Secretary General Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Molla were involved in wholesale killings of freedom fighters and locals of Keraniganj on November 25, 1971.
Of the accused, nine were on the spot of killings while the rest were behind the scenes. Of those who carried out the massacre, five are still alive. They are Haji Nazimuddin, ameer of Keraniganj Jamaat, Abul Hashem, ameer of Dhaka district Jamaat, KG Karim Babla, Mohammad Yasin and Fayezur Rahman Fayez.
Mozaffar said he has a number of eyewitnesses to testify against the nine and circumstantial evidence against the four who were the brains behind the mass killings.
“I saw Babla, a razakar from Keraniganj, standing at the gate of Mohammadpur Physical Centre which was then the camp of Razakar, Al-Badr, and Al Shams Bahini. At that time, a jeep carrying Nizami and Mojahid entered the camp. I’m talking about November 5, 1971,” Mozaffar said recollecting the days in the lead-up to November 25.
He said Karim, the then convenor of Dhaka city Muslim Chhatra League, had joined the Razakar Bahini in 1971.
“He was directly involved in the killings. He along with his family used to live in Hazaribagh then and now they live in Dhanmondi,” Mozaffar said.
Legal experts say odds are stacked against the war crimes being proved in a conventional court under the criminal law and so there has been a growing demand for the war criminals to be tried in a special tribunal.
Asked why he lodged the case with a regular court, Mozaffar said, “I am quite hopeful that I would be able to prove the charges. I have enough witnesses and evidence against the accused, nine of who were on the spot of killings. I can also prove that the killings took place on instructions of Nizami, Mojahid, Quader Molla and Kamaruzzaman.”
He said he believes that it would have been even better had the government taken the initiative to bring the war criminals to trial.
He still thinks he would get justice unless the government influences the proceedings in favour of the accused.
Now the commander Dhaka unit Muktijoddha Sangsad, Mozaffar made the observations in an interview with The Daily Star yesterday afternoon.
He said Jamaat men killed his nephew Osman Gani, fellow freedom fighter Golam Mostafa alias Tukub Ali and Darbesh Ali on November 25.
Of the accused, four–Abdul Khaleq, Mannan Siddique, Dr Joynal and Puina Al-Badr–have been exempted from the charges as they are not alive.
He said the local Razakars went on a killing spree across four villages at Keraniganj on November 25.
“Some of the villagers who survived the firing squad that day will testify for me,” he added.
He however declined to elaborate on the witnesses he has to help him out in the trial. About the evidence he has gathered so far, he said, “All this is meant to be placed before the court only.”
Mozaffar said in the morning of November 25, Razakars killed his 22-year-old nephew and his fellow freedom fighter Mostafa at their homes in Bhawal Khan Bari village. Osman and Mostafa went there the night before to visit their family.
“I had asked them not to go home as I feared they might be killed by the anti-liberation forces,” he continued.
Asked what was the basis of his fear, he said he too had wanted to visit his family at the Boro Bhawal Village.
“I even started for my home on November 23. But on my way I saw KG Karim and learned from others that he was there trying to track down me and other freedom fighters to kill. At that instant I changed my decision and came back to my camp at Kolatali union at Keraniganj,” he went on.
“The Razakars had asked Osman and Mostafa about my whereabouts and the location of our camp. But as the two did not disclose anything, they shot them dead.”
At around the same time at Ghatar Char village, they killed Darbesh Ali.
Mozaffar and his men wanted to move to the villages to avenge the killings. “But as the collaborators had already asked for Pakistani forces, we changed our decision. Considering the strength of the occupying army, we found it unwise to fight them,” he said.
Later in the day, Pakistani troops aided and abetted by the local Razakars committed mass killings across several villages of Keraniganj, he said adding that around five thousand people were killed that day.
He said at least 70 activists of Razakar, Al-Badr, and Al Shams Bahini took part in the killings, torching and lootings in Keraniganj on November 25.
In the FIR, he mentioned that the accused had formed the paramilitary forces to exterminate the freedom fighters.
Nizami was the Al-Badr commander of Pakistan while Mojahid headed its East Pakistan wing, the complainant said adding that Quader and Kamaruzzaman too were in the top echelon of the Al-Badr Bahini.
He said names of some of the accused were in the gazette notification published in 1972 carrying the names of collaborators.
Mozaffar was a student of Ati Bhawal High School in Keraniganj before joining the Liberation War in May. He was 17-year-old and a candidate for matriculation examination.
As a scout, he would initially conduct physical trainings for freedom fighters at different camps in Agartala. Later, he went to Assam for arms training. On completion of the training, he came back to Melaghar in Agartala in July and got enrolled as a freedom fighter.
Mozaffar said he joined sector 2 under the command of Khaled Mosharraf, who was later replaced by Haider.
He returned to Keraniganj in August as the commander of a 15-member team.
He set up his camp at Kolatali Union. But as his was a small unit, he merged his group with that of former lawmaker and Gono Forum leader Mostafa Mohsin Montu.
Mozaffar said he led the war in Keraniganj while Montu in the southern part of Dhaka.
December 19th, 2007 at 8:08 am
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