Chintito

On Muktijuddho and related
matters - V

Chintito

This is the fifth instalment on the demand for the trial and punishment of the 1971 War criminals and of those who perpetrated crime against humanity to highlight that this column stood fast on the just demand of the people of Bangladesh since it began 1995. Here are some extracts from past issues:

29 October 2007
“There are now, according to the military authorities, 5000 razakars in East Pakistan, 300 of them in Khulna District. They are paid Rs. 3 a day and receive seven days' training, which appears to consist entirely of learning how to shoot a police Lee-Enfield rifle. Their work consists of 'security checks' guiding the West Pakistan troops to the homes of supporters of the Awami League. They are supposed to be under the orders of the local 'peace committees' which are selected by the military authorities on a similar basis of 'loyalty to Pakistan'. These people are, in fact representatives of the political parties which were routed in the last elections…the now banned Awami League won all eight seats in the district and scored 75% of all votes cast. The three branches of Muslim League got 3 to 4% between them and the fanatical Jamate-Islam got 6%.” [Murray Sayle, The Sunday Times, London, July 11, 1971]

26-31 December 2007
I received this sms from a Bangalee student who was born at least twelve years after our independence. He could still be studying in university. He has not seen 1971, but listen to the fire in his heart:
(quote) “Can a Muslim kill a man? The answer is no.
Can a Muslim rape? The answer is no.
Can a Muslim loot another's property? The answer is no.
Can a Muslim ignite another's property? The answer is no.
Can a Muslim support all the above-mentioned acts? The answer is no.
Jamatis did all those crimes in 1971 and still supporting those.
Now answer the question, 'Are Jamatis Muslims?'”(unquote)

23 July 2008
Very often it is heard that the power of the khuti of the razakars, al-badar, al-shaams lie in their good relationship with the Arab World, meaning Saudi Arabia, Libya, UAE and so on. The blatant question then is what our ambassadors have been doing. What are they doing now, for heaven's sake? It is a collective diplomatic failure of a four-decade old country that we could not convince the Saudis and the Gaddafis and the Emirs and so on that the Pakistani junta and their collaborators have committed crime against humanity in 1971, that the people of Bangladesh are the good guys and not those who falsely dress like the Arabs, talk in Arabic and give a chumma on each gaal at every opportunity. As Muslims the Arabs would take in earnest the truth, if truth be told earnest. If President Bush can convince them and garner their support with his pack of selective truth, how difficult can it be for us to convert them with the one hundred percent facts of manslaughter, rape and deceit?

18 August 2008
For those who were born around 1953 (and please don't cheat), meaning they were about 14 or less in 1971, the events leading up to our War of Liberation may not have unfolded to them as LIVE history. For them there is some scope not to know who had what role to play, unless their parents were wholly (also read holy) honest with them. For them it may be possible to wrongly consider that a nationwide movement that even created waves in the Thames and ripples at the Sydney Harbour was triggered by some radio waves credited to both a civilian and an army officer, depending on the current political belief of the source. Alas! No other nation born of a bloody muktijuddho suffers from such naivety.

For the rest of the living population, such an act of knowledgeable ignorance (read gyan paapi) and wilful forgetfulness is unpardonable by that person's own conscience and punishable in a people's court, more so since the judiciary has taken into cognizance the life of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in declaring 15 August as the National Mourning Day.

31 March 2008
It is yet another lie that the trial and punishment of the war criminals of the War of Liberation 1971 is being demanded, suddenly, after over three decades of supposed hibernation. That is simply not true. Search the newspapers, read the books, comprehend the poems, decipher the message of the street theatre, listen to the jaari gaan… there has been a persistent and consistent demand to try the perpetrators of one of the most heinous crimes in the history of mankind.

In straight Bangla, the 'heinous crime' was that together with the occupying Pakistan forces, brutal and inhuman as they were, their Bengali and Urdu-speaking gangs in the guise of Muslim League, Jamaat-e-Islam, Razakars, Al-badr, Al-shams, etc., unleashed a reign of terror commencing with the ill-famed Operation Searchlight 25 March 1971 on unarmed Bangalee men, women and children, and continuing until their meek surrender to our valiant Muktijoddha and the Indian forces at the then Race Course Maidan, renamed Suhrawardhy Udyan 1971 after the government of Sheikh Mujib banned gambling on horse racing. Over those nine months, the cowards murdered three million Bangalee, raped two lakh women, tortured innumerable people, and torched villages, towns and bazaars.

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