Staff Correspondent
During the Liberation War, as many as 450 Hindus were put into a large hole and shot to death en masse at the directive of Motiur Rahman Nizami, the prosecution told the International Crimes Tribunal yesterday.
Many women were also raped during the incident that took place on May 14, 1971 in Pabna's Baulkhali village, said prosecutor Altaf Uddin Ahmed reading out the formal charges against the Jamaat-e-Islami ameer.
The prosecutor yesterday finished reading out the 73-page formal charges filed on December 11 last year. The three-member tribunal headed by its Chairman Justice Md Nizamul Huq adjourned the hearing until March 21.
Nizami was not produced before the court yesterday in line with the tribunal's decision. He is facing 15 charges of crimes against humanity committed during the Liberation War.
According to the prosecution, the charges include genocide, rape, torture, abduction and confinement of Bangalee people in greater Pabna, Jessore, Chittagong and Dhaka, and abetment of and attempt or conspiracy to perform such acts during the war.
The judges, however, were not satisfied with the way some of the offences were presented in the formal charges.
Justice Nizamul Huq was particularly surprised that the killing of intellectuals was not included as an individual crime in the formal charges against Nizami.
The Jamaat chief was the commander of Al-Badr, one of the auxiliary forces set up to collaborate with the Pakistani occupation army in 1971, which actively took part in the killings of intellectuals.
CHARGES AGAINST NIZAMI
Narrating one of the incidents, prosecutor Altaf Uddin yesterday said freedom fighter Abdul Majed was abducted and brutally tortured and murdered on August 9, 1971.
“A note was attached to his body that read: 'Ar jara achho tara Nizami ar Sobhan Mawlanar kachhe attoshomorpon koro' [those who are still out there, surrender before Nizami and Sobhan Mawlana],” said the prosecutor.
According to the prosecutor, on May 8, 1971, collaborators surrounded the house of Surendranath Thakur in Pabna's Sathia on Nizami's order.
People from the neighbouring houses were lined up in front of Thakur's house of worship. They were shot dead. Many women were also raped then, Altaf added.
Altaf said freedom fighter Abdus Selim along with his father Shahid Sohrab Ali and a cousin fled to India. After they left, their village was surrounded on Nizami's order on November 11.
Many were abducted and brutally tortured then. They were asked about the whereabouts of Selim and told that they would be shot if they did not cooperate. Some 72 houses were set ablaze in that village.
Nizami was also involved in the murder of 19 people in Ishwardi on April 16, 1971, according to the charges, which also state that he along with Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed was involved in the killing of a number of prisoners in an army camp at Nakhalpara.
Mojaheed, secretary general of Jamaat, is also facing war crimes charges at the tribunal.
The two Jamaat leaders went to the army camp on the night of August 30, 1971. They decided that some prisoners at the camp should be killed before the president announced a general amnesty.
Many prisoners, including Bodi, Rumi and Jewel were killed, the charges say.
According to prosecutor Altaf, Nizami along with former Jamaat-e-Islami chief Ghulam Azam frequently visited the army camp at Physical Training Institute in Mohammadpur where they plotted crimes against humanity.
Nizami also frequently gave speeches encouraging anti-liberation forces to eliminate the supporters of independence, the prosecutor added.
“Pakistan is the house of the Almighty,” Nizami told a gathering of Islami Chhatra Sangha, Jamaat's student wing in 1971, at Chittagong Muslim Institute on August 3.
“He is protecting his beloved land with the army. This land must be protected.”
The prosecutor said Nizami, in another speech at an Islamic discussion held at Dhaka University on August 22, said, “Those who want to divide Pakistan have taken up arms,” and stressed that the pro-liberation forces must be eliminated.
With these speeches, the Jamaat chief provoked active opposition to the liberation forces, the prosecutor added.
PREPARATION OF PROSECUTION
After the prosecution finished reading out the formal charges, the tribunal chairman asked prosecutor Altaf Uddin Ahmed whether he was prepared to place arguments supporting the charges.
The prosecutor said he was ready.
Justice Nizamul Huq reminded the prosecutor that he would have to substantiate the charges brought against Nizami in his argument and suggested that the prosecutor come prepared on March 21.
Justice AKM Zaheer Ahmed of the tribunal also asked the prosecutor, “Are you ready?”
Prosecutor Altaf replied that he was indeed ready.
“Then let's just begin with the last charge that you read out. The rest can wait till later.”
He then asked the prosecutor to read out the 15th and the last charge, which says Nizami conspired with a Razakar commander named Samad at a collaborators' camp in a Pabna school.
Justice Ahmed asked the prosecutor why he proposed charging Nizami for crimes against humanity [murder, genocide, enslavement, torture, rape, etc] for only plotting and conspiring.
As Altaf could not give a convincing answer, prosecutor Syed Haider Ali argued that it was the conspiracy that resulted in those crimes.
The tribunal pointed out that the description of the charges does not say that the crimes against humanity took place because of those conspiracies and plots.
Haider argued that the charge has a larger context and is connected to other charges, which are not independent.
Justice Ahmed replied that if the charges were indeed not independent, the prosecution has actually brought only two charges against Nizami in a generalised context.
The judge then identified conspiracy and command responsibility as the two charges in a broad context.
At that point, the tribunal drew an example from Wednesday where another prosecutor failed to give satisfactory answer to the judges' queries in a case against Abdul Quader Mollah, another Jamaat leader.
“The investigation is not being done properly,” said Justice AKM Zaheer Ahmed, recalling that the investigation officer or the prosecution failed to find any early news reports on the murder of poet Meherunnesa in Mollah's case.
The prosecution brought a news report and a book published in 2007 as evidence for the murder of the poet in 1971 although the incident prompted over a hundred news reports starting from 1972, the tribunal observed.
NO CHARGES FOR INTELLECTUALS' MURDER
At one point during yesterday's proceedings, the tribunal chairman asked prosecutors Altaf Uddin and Haider Ali why Nizami was not charged with the killing of the intellectuals in 1971.
One of the counts at the formal charge mentions the Physical Training Institute, where Al-Badr cadres brought the intellectuals after abducting them.
References say that intellectuals were tortured at that facility before they were killed, said the tribunal chairman.
The charge, however, only holds Nizami responsible for the atrocities committed at the institute between March 25 and December 16, 1971.
Prosecutor Haider Ali told the tribunal that the killing of the intellectuals was mentioned in the formal charges.
Justice Nizmaul Huq agreed that it was “touched upon”. “But why not bring a charge?” he commented.
The prosecutor said they had enough evidence to substantiate Nizami's involvement in the murders.
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