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War Crimes Trial

Prosecution prays for indictment of Azharul

Staff Correspondent
The prosecution yesterday prayed to International Crimes Tribunal-1 to frame charges against Jamaat-e-Islami Acting Secretary General ATM Azharul Islam.
On the second day of his argument, prosecutor AKM Saiful Islam said, "We've brought six specific charges against him. So, we are requesting the tribunal to frame charges."
Meanwhile, the tribunal fixed September 8 to hear the defence's arguments on the discharge petition, which may be filed any day before that date, after defence counsel Ta jul Islam sought more time for preparation.
Azharul, now 61, was a student at Rangpur Carmichael College and president of Rangpur district unit Islami Chhatra Sangha, the then student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, in 1971.
He was involved in committing the massacre in Rangpur where some 1,225 people were killed during the Liberation War, according to the probe report.
Besides, he was involved in killing four people, abducting 17, raping one, confining 13, torturing 13 people and looting and torching numerous houses in the district, it says.
While reading out the charges, prosecutor Saiful said that in 1971, Azharul was also the commander of Rangpur Al-Badr, an auxiliary force to the Pakistani army.
The accused was "involved" in the abduction and killing of four professors of Carmichael College and the wife of one of them, he said, claiming, "It was an act of genocide."
Azharul faces another charge for his involvement in abduction, confinement, torture, rape, mass killings and genocide from March 25 to December 16, 1971, Saiful said.
In this connection, the prosecutor referred to one Mansura Khatun, who had been tortured at a torture centre and witnessed the war crimes of Azharul and his associates from there.
Quoting the witness, Saiful said, "Both male and female were tortured naked after they were hung upside down. Their [victims] wounds were wrapped with acid-soaked cloth. Later, the victims were killed and thrown at the nearby well and bushes."
The prosecutor said Azharul was "involved' in torturing two persons of Gupta Para and Betpatti respectively in Rangpur town from mid-November to early December 1971.
The rest of the six charges against Azharul include tor- ture and killing of 12 persons at Dakhiganj Cremation Ground in Rangpur town on April3,1971.
He was also allegedly involved in the killing of 15 unarmed Bangalees of Dhap Para in Badarganj on April 16, 1971 and looting of the houses of the deceased.
Police arrested Azharul at his Moghbazar home in the capital on August 22 last year after the tribunal issued an arrest warrant for him for his alleged wartime offences.