Couple of days before, I
watched a Bengali drama titled, �Ajob Chele� (strange
boy) written by eminent teacher-writer Dr. Muhammad
Jafor Iqbal. According to the drama, a strange boy
completed the distance between
Dhaka and Birampur, a border of Bangladesh-India
by walking to feel his mother�s pain while she had to
complete the same distance by walking with her pregnancy
in 1971.
Like others Hindu family
in
Bangladesh , the strange boy�s parents need to
flee India during the independence. A short while after
his birth, his mother died at Birampur due to huge
sufferings. The boy tried to feel how much pain and
problem his mother had to face during the birth of him
and
Bangladesh .
Bangladesh has so many days to feel those pains
and problems like the February 21, the March 26, the
December 14, the December 16 and many more. General
people, government, different type of organizations and
media usually try to pay their heartiest homage to those
brave people of
Bangladesh who had to sacrifice their life due to
their patriotism. Remembering their sacrifice, it is too
much impossible for every Bangladeshi to forget the
barbaric killing of 1971 which was only possible with
the help of some demons of
Bangladesh .
The interim government is
trying to fight against corruption. But has
Bangladesh any plan to exorcise the demons of
1971 as the present government is not bound to keep any
coalition even with the war criminals?
The people of
Bangladesh can hardly expect any trial against
this traitors as every political party in
Bangladesh has a deep collaboration with them.
Now
Bangladesh has an international figure, noble
laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Will it be too much for him
if the people of
Bangladesh ask for trail against the traitors as
he is giving a bunch of hopes and dreams to every
Bangladeshi for a new
Bangladesh ?
Today, these demons that
collaborated with the Pakistan army and murdered
countless people of
Bangladesh are even using the national flag of
Bangladesh . Isn�t a big pain for Bangladeshis?
According to the July 30,
1971 of the New York Times issue, the Pakistani
government recruited more than 22,000 Razakars of a
planned force of 35,000. Politically Razakar were
composed with the fundamentalist members and supporters
from the whole country by the Pakistani military and
they were the predecessors of today�s Talibans. Members
of both the forces, Razakars and Talibans, were
recruited, trained and inducted in the same process.
Besides this, Al-Badars and Al-Shams were composed with
the members of the student wing of the fundamentalist
party Jamaat-e-Islami and the follower of �Moududi (a
political leader Maulana Abul
Ala Moududi)� ideology.
During the liberation war
in 1971, the collaborators of Pakistani army provided
intelligence against the freedom fighter, the supporters
and sympathizers of the war and abducted, arrested and
eventually killed them with the help of the Pakistani
army. They became happy to burn the houses and loot the
properties of Bangladeshis. In addition, they kidnapped
thousands of Bangalee women and trafficked them to
various Pakistani military camps and raped and molested
450,000 Bangalee women.
The Pakistan army, on the
verge of defeat, was determined to wipe out Bengali
culture in one final act of barbarism with the help of
the war criminals of
Bangladesh . On December 14, 1971, the Pakistan
army unleashed the paramilitary units Al-Badr and
Al-Shams to exterminate Bengali intellectuals.
The goal was to find and
kill Bengali political thinkers, educators, scientists,
poets, doctors, lawyers, journalists and other
intellectuals. The Al-Badr and Al-Shams fanned out with
lists of names to find and execute the core of Bengali
intellectuals. The intellectuals were arrested and taken
to Rayerbazar, a marshy area in Dhaka city. There, they
were gunned down with their eyes blindfolded and their
hands tied behind their backs.
Members of Razakar. Al-Badr
and Al-Shams are leading now the various political
parties like Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami oikko Jot,
Khelafat-e-Majlish and many more while others live
freely in foreign countries. They are capable to grab
the seats of the Parliament of
Bangladesh. None of these criminals have yet to
face any trial for the crimes they committed in 1971.
Although the leader of
Jamat-e-Islam Golam Azam�s citizenship was revoked and
Matiur Rahman Nizami and other top leaders were sent to
jail under trial, the whole political scenario was
changed after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibar Rahman.
General Ziaur Rahman granted Golam-Azam Bangladeshi
citizenship, released all the war criminals imprisoned
on various criminal charges and by amending the
constitution allowed them to be involved in politics.
Many of them awarded and posted with high designation
both nationally and internationally. And the journey
against humanity begins once again in full suing.
As a result of the last
thirty five years of their pampering journey with the
help of corrupt politicians, bureaucrat and so-called
national leaders, the once loathed demons of Bangladesh
now became the most powerful people of Bangladesh , a
country ironically they fought against.
Being in power in the last
government, they deliberately destroyed (while the
Bangladesh Nationalist party leaders were busy stealing
the public money to get rich) the main political /
social institutions of
Bangladesh and rewrote the history of Bangladesh
liberation war. Even they banished the history of
independence from the history texts of Bangladeshi
schools.
In 1992, after restoration
of democracy, an unofficial but popular �Court of
People� sentenced Golam Azam and his ten accomplices to
death for war crimes and crimes against humanity. But
later on, verdict was ignored and banished.
The religious extremism
has been growing in
Bangladesh for decades now. Although these forces
were put in total disarray after their defeat in 1971,
they have managed to regroup due to subsequent political
patronage. They were further helped in their revival by
the confrontationist politics of
Bangladesh .
To further consolidate
their grip on the country, the defeated forces of the
1971 Liberation War are now carrying out bomb attacks
across
Bangladesh . The forces, namely Razakar, Al-Badr
and Al-Shams, who massacred the frontline intellectuals
and professionals at the fag end of the liberation war
in 1971, are the masterminds behind this bomb terrorism.
Meanwhile,
a case was filed in the Federal Court of Australia on
September 20, 2006 under the Genocide Conventions
Act 1949 and War Crimes Act, alleged
crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against
humanity during 1971 by the Pakistani Armed Forces and
its collaborators. This is the first time in
history that someone named Raymond F Solaiman is
attending a court proceeding in relation to the crimes
of Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity
during 1971.
Thirty-five years after
the birth of the nation, many have forgotten the
sacrifices of those who are no longer with us. But for
those of us who survived, for our parents who kept us
safe through the months of terror, there is no erasing
the horrors of 1971.
Very often, it is regular
to see the sufferings, humiliation and deprivation of
freedom fighters of
Bangladesh . Some of them are rickshaw-pullers,
street slumbers or even beggars. Most of the countries
in the world respect their freedom fighters and senior
citizens for their great contribution towards the
country. Government has special priorities for those
great heroes.
Freedom fighters don�t
need only a monthly token money. There is no such
development program in order to rehabilitate destitute
freedom fighters and victims of liberation war and their
families. A country can�t ever rise without paying
attention to the country�s great heroes.
Today
Bangladesh that was born from the ashes of 1971
is under the same threat. It is under threat from the
same anti-liberation forces that helped perpetrate the
genocide of 1971. Bangladeshis is still now experiencing
the same history of both racism and religious extremism
due to the war criminals.
Former president of Iraq
Mr.
Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging after
being convicted of crime against humanity for the murder
of 148 Iraqi Shia in the town of Dujail in 1982. Then
what about for the murder of 3 million innocent people?
What about 450,000 women, raped and molested by
Pakistani army?
____
About the
author: Ripan Kumar
Biswas--a
former
intern of
The Seoul
Times--is a
freelance
writer based
in New York.
