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The days of the vultures

Abdul Mannan
NE of the most heinous crimes against humanity committed in the twentieth century was the relentless and brutal killing of hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians by the Pakistani occupation forces and their local cronies commonly known as Razakars and Al-Badars during our War of Liberation in 1971. This brutality commonly known as genocide against Bengalis has few parallel in contemporary history except the killings of innocent Jewish civilians by the dreaded Hitler's Nazi forces (Operation Final Solution), the bombing by US forces in Vietnam on civilian targets, the Genocide in Rwanda and the mass killing by the Serbs in Bosnia Herzegovina following the break up of former Yugoslavia in the nineties.
The genocide of Bangladesh in 1971 was committed in a number of phases. In the first phase which commenced on the fateful night of March 26, 1971,code-named 'Operation Search Light' the focus was on rampant and brutal killing of Bengali speaking members of the Pakistan Army, East Pakistan Rifles, East Pakistan Police, the Ansars, innocent Bengali civilians, irrespective of religious or political beliefs and the teachers of Dhaka University who were believed to be one of the driving forces of the War of Liberation. The Pakistani Military Junta accused them of indoctrinating the students of the university with the concept of Bengali nationalism and moti-
vating them towards the demand for an Independent Bangladesh. Though similar killing spree were also staged in other universities and educational institutions tire ferocity and magnitude was much more severe in Dhaka University. The first phase continued till the end of April. By that time most of the country came under the control of the Pakistani forces.
The second phase, beginning in the month of May was characterized by selective killing of anyone who was believed to have had any connection, however remote, with the Awami League, the party that won the majority seats in the Pakistan National Assembly. On the heels of this phase came the killing of the minority community. The occupation forces knew very well that to maintain the pace of execution of their plan to destroy the will and spirit of the people of Bangladesh for an independent country, they must create a band of local supporters who knew the country, its terrain and the people much better than themselves. Initially they banked on the non-Bengali migrants from India and soon also had the leaders and supporters of Pro Pakistani political parties like the Muslim League, Nezami Islam and the Jamaat-e-Islami on board. Of all these parties, the Jamaat was the most organized having its roots amongst the students (Islami Chatra Sangha) and the intellectuals. Not only they were well organized, they had a functional
chain of command, were well financed and had strong foreign connections. These were ultra reactionary and ultra fundamentalist forces having unblemished allegiance towards the ideologies of Pakistan. On top of everything they enjoyed the confidence of the Pakistani occupation forces. The Pakistani occupation forces capitalized on this groundreality and soon started to organize armed cadres from the supporters of these ProPakistan political parties to fight along side with them against the pro-liberation forces. In June 1971 the government officially created a para-military force named Razakar, comprising initially of the members of the defunct Ansars (mostly nonBengalis) though such a force comprising of Jamaat workers were already working in Khulna area under the command of Jamaat leader A K M Yousuf. Soon the foot soldiers of Muslim League, Nezami Islami were also inducted in this force. Later this force was enlarged by recruiting ordinary poor and unemployed people. Though this force was functioning under a government promulgated ordinance it was always under the control of the Jamaat-e-Islam. There were other similar forces like the East Pakistan Civil Armed Forces, Al-Shams and Mujahid Bahini. Throughout their existence in the occupied Bangladesh they raped, looted and destroyed village after village and towns of Bangladesh. However the most
dreaded amongst all the paramilitary forces was the Al-Badr, the killing machine of the Jamaat.
Ihe Al-Badrs were the elite death squad of Jamaat-e-Islami. The idea of forming such a death squad was conceived in Jamalpur when the Pakistani forces occupied the town on April 22. The then President of the local Islami Chatra Sangha (ICS) Muhammed Ashraf Hossain formed the first band of Al-Badr and commissioned the squad by killing six freedom fighters of Jamalpur. He tried to prove that the Al-Badrs would be able to assist the Pakistani forces much more effectively provided they were given the logistic support as they were better educated and better committed towards the ideologies of Pakistan than any other local collaborators. In the month of August the entire ICS as a student organization was transformed into Al-Badr with the President of the All Pakistan ICS Motiur Rahman Nizami (Present Ameer of Jamaat) as their Commander in Chief. Others who played key roles in forming and guiding the Al-Badr include, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed (Present General Secretary of Jamaat), Mir Kashem Ali (Presently a Jamaat Leader, in 1971 Chief of Al-Badr in Chittagong), Mohammad Kamruzzaman (Presently Publicity Secretary of Jamaat), A B M Khaleque Majumder (now a businessman), Delwar Hossain Saidi (former MP). Unlike other para-military forces assisting Pakistani forces, Al-Badr had more specific task, primarily selective killing of the progres-sive, secular and proindependence intellectuals of, Bangladesh. As the entire ICS outfit was converted into Al-Badr death squad, the organization had a very strong network throughout the countr>'.
It is unfortunate that the suc-cessive governments of Bangladesh failed to prepare a complete list of all the intellectuals killed by the Al-Badr goons in 1971 but it can be safely concluded that the bulk of the intellectuals who were killed during this period, especially in the months of October to December lost their lives in the hands of Al-Badr killers.
The Al-Badr high-command became very desperate starting from the month of November as they realized that the time was running out for the united Pakistan and the emergence of an independent Bangladesh was
in sight. It was something very similar to die situation during the Second World War when the allies were closing in on Germany and the liberation of Europe was in sight. The Nazi regime of Hitler stepped up their plan to complete the extermination of the Jews in Germany and see their 'Final Solutions' come to a successful end. Additional gas chambers, firing squads were pressed into operation and the person in-charge of the Operation Final Solution Adolph Eichmann, saw everything executed to its minutest details. In Bangladeshi the Al-Badrs did something very similar and with the active participation of the occupation forces started picking up their victims in dozens. Dr. Muntasir Mamoon in his well researched and edited publication Muktijuddho Kosh (Encyclopedia of The Liberation War) mentions that from the recovered documents it is revealed that on November 16 Pakistani forces made a final briefing on the killing of the Bangladeshi intellectuals and issued a circular to the Al-Badrs in Dhaka detailing about their final plans including decisions to supply all types of logistic support and arms and ammunition required to complete the killing mission. Crash courses were offered to the Al-Badr killers under the supervision of Brigadier Bashir, Captain Qayum and other senior Pakistani officers. Lists of Bangladeshi intellectuals were meticulously prepared with the help of the Al-Badr high command and handed over to the executioners for instant and swift execution.
On the fateful night of December 4, when the final battle for Dhaka began curfew and black out were declared all over Bangladesh. This was primarily done so that the Al-Badr victims could be picked up either from their hiding places or their residences. Ali Ahsan Mohammed Mujahid and Mir Kashem Ali in a joint statement hailed the Pakistani forces for their 'victory' in the battle fronts and promised all out support towards Pakistan's President Yahiya Khan. While the joint liberation forces were closing in on Dhaka a systematic abduction of the intellectuals were being carried out by the Al-Badrs throughout the country, the main focus being the Dhaka City. It gained momentum between December 10 and 14 and the number of intellectuals picked up swelled and additional deten-
tion and torture centres had to be opened in Kakrail Mosque, Dhanmondi High School and MLA hostel in Nakhalpara. Those picked up in Dhaka during those fateful nights and the nights preceding included Professor Munier Chowdhury, Professor Gyasuddin Ahmed, Professor Rashidul Hassan, Professor Anwar Pasha, Composer Altaf Mahmud, Journalist Serajuddin Hossain, Journalist Nizamuddin Ahmed, Journalist Ghulam Mustafa, Writer Selina Pervin, and Physician Alim Chowdhury. The Al-Badr killers conducted similar operations in other parts of the country. After severe physical tortures were carried out on all the victims, they were blind folded; hands tied in the back and were taken to the killing fields and brutally executed. After the liberation of Bangladesh on December 16, their mutilated bodies were discovered in the killing fields of Rayer Bazar, Mirpur and other parts of the country. The primary reason for such brutal and systematic killings was to deny a newly born country the much > needed intellectual capital in its early phase.
Though all the proPakistani political parties were involved in assisting the Pakistani Army in committing one of the most heinous genocides in contemporary history it was only Jamaat -e-Islami that put an institutional and structured form in such a crime against human- -ity. Their entire leadership went into hiding from 1972 to 1975. Few escaped to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Britain. None of their leader-ship including Motiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Mujaheed, Kamruzzaman, Delawar Hossain Saidi, Mir Kashem Ali, ABM Khaleque Mazumder was ever tried in any court of law for their crime against humanity. After the killing of Bangabandhu on August 15, 1975 the political scenario of Bangladesh took a U turn.
This is a tragedy of history that the 145 million people of Bangladesh, three million martyrs of our liberation war will have to live with perpetually, unless these perpetrators are brought to justice by some patriotic government in near future.
The writer is an educationist and a researcher.