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Mueen, Ashraf were killers of intellectuals

Prof Anisuzzaman testifies at war tribunal

Staff Correspondent
Eminent educationist Prof Anisuzzaman yesterday testified that the plot to kill the intellectuals was hatched in August and was executed by infamous Al-Badr force in December 1971 in an attempt to cripple the soon-to-be-independent Bangladesh.
Chowdhury Mueen Uddin, operationin-charge of Al-Badr, and Ashrafuzzaman Khan, chief executor of the Pakistani auxiliary force, were involved in the execution of the plan, the 76-year-old professor told the International CrimesTribunal-2.
The Professor Emeritus of Dhaka University, also 20th prosecution witness in the case against alleged Al-Badr leaders Mueen and Ashraf, cited victims' family members and newspaper reports to substantiate his testimony.
Mueen and Ashraf, now abroad, are facing 11 charges for their alleged involvement in the killings of 18 intellectuals in the last week of the nine-month-long Liberation War.
During his 50-minuter testimony, Anisuzzaman said he had worked at the Bangla department at Chittagong University in 1971 and after the crackdown on the night of March 25, they tried to resist for a few days.
Anisuzzaman said he had left the campus on April 1 and taken shelter at different places in Chittagong. He had reached Agartala in Indian on April 25 and later gone to Kolkata with his family on May 15, he went on saying.
In Kolkata he had concentrated to from Bangladesh Shikkhak Samiti with the teachers from embattled Bangladesh and become its general secretary, he said. Later, he had become a member of the Planning Commission of the first government, he added.
"Afterindependence; I learned about the intellectuals' killings from newspaper reports on December 17 when I was still in Kolkata," said Anisuzzaman, adding that he along with his family had returned to Bangladesh on January 8, 1972.
The next day he had visited the residences of martyr ProfMunier Chowdhury and martyr Prof Mofazzal Haider Chowdhury who were his teachers.
"Syeda Manowara Chowdhury, wife of Prof Mofazzal Haider Chowdhury, told me: 'your students have taken away your teacher1," said the witness.
Anisuzzaman said Prof Lutftil Haider Chowdhury, younger brother of Prof Mofazzal, had told him that some youth, whose faces were covered in handkerchiefs, took away his brother form his house on December 14,1971.
At one stage of the abduction, one of the youths' face was unveiled and Prof Mofazzal said 'Mueen Uddin, you!' The youth replied, "Yes, don't be panicked, you will go with me," Anisuzzaman quoted Lutftil as saying.
'This Mueen Uddin was Chowdhury Mueen Uddin, who was a student of Bangla at Dhaka University and a staff reporter of Daily Purbadesh," Anisuzzaman said, adding "He was acquainted to me when I was a teacher of Bangla at Dhaka University in 1969."
Mofazzal had never returned and his body was not found, he added.
"He [Mofazzal] was taken and tortured at Physical Training College [in city's Mohammadpur) and I have read and watched one Delowar Hossain's interview regarding his [Mofazzal] detention and torture," said Anisuzzaman.
Delowar was the lone survivor who was tortured at the training college and witnessed brutal torture of the detained intellectuals there, he further said.
On August 13, Iftekhar Haider Chowdhury, nephew of Mofazzal, testified that Mueen along with other Al-Badr men had abducted his uncle, who had identified him [Mueen| as his student.
Daily Purbadesh, Dainik Bangla, Daily Ittefaq and other newspapers published several reports with Mueen's photos in 1972. The reports said Mueen was the operation-in-charge of Al-Badr and was directly involved in the abduction and killings of Mofazzal and many other intellectuals, Anisuzzaman said.
The witness also said he had learned from newspapers that Ashraftizzaman, chief executor of Al-Badr, was also involved in the intellectuals' killings.
He added the newspapers published a report headlined "Dairy of a tyrant", which was based on a diary recovered from Ashrafs house. The diary had the names of the intellectuals, including Mofazzal, who were abducted and killed in December, said the witness.
"On behalf of the civil society, we demanded arrest and trial of the people who had killed the intellectuals and still we are demanding the same," he said.
As per the plan hatched in August 1971, Al-Badr in December killed university teachers, journalists, physicians, lawyers and other professionals who had supported independence, said Anisuzzaman.
He added he had seen Mueen one day in August 1979 at India Office Library in London where the latter reluctantly offered him 'salam' and left the place hurriedly. The library register confirmed Mueen's identity, he said.
After his testimony, tribunal-appointed defence counsels Abdus Shukur Khan and Salma Hai Tuny completed his cross-examination and claimed their clients were not involved in these killings.
The two-member tribunal of Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Md Shahinur Islam adjourned the proceeding until today.