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Azhar's War Crimes

Pregnant woman got no mercy

Mahbubur Rahman Khan and Hafiz Hasan, Rangpur
She was six months pregnant and begged for mercy from the Pakistan army and war crimes convict ATM Azharul Islam.
But her pleas fell on deaf ears and three army men gang raped her at her neighbour's house until she lost all consciousness around noon on a day between August and September, 1971.
Azharul and the army men also looted valuables of her house and Tk 1,600, which her husband had left her for food and maintenance before he left for training in India to join the Liberation War.
That is not where the nightmare ended though, the monstrous men then forcibly took the pregnant housewife to Rangpur Town Hall where she was raped for 18 more days resulting in the miscarriage of the child she was carrying.
"The horror still haunts her," the victim's husband, a freedom fighter, told The Daily Star over the telephone yesterday. "She still suffers from cervical complications caused by the inhumane physical torture she was subjected to in the Town Hall."
The couple now lives a life of limited means. "If my house was not looted, if all that money |not a meagre amount in 1971] was not taken, perhaps things would be different," he said.
The freedom fighter who earned a livelihood by pulling a rickshaw until recently, is now old and cannot work. His wife has had two eye operations recently. His elder son is a labourer while the younger son is a rickshaw puller.
“I'm happy with this verdict though I will not get back what I had lost," he said.
The victim, who testified as the first prosecution witness, said: "I have been waiting for the last 43 years to witness exemplary punishment of Azhar. I am happy now."
She wants quick execution of the verdict.
Like the couple, several other witnesses and family members of victims expressed their satisfaction overthe verdict.
Terming the verdict a historic one, veteran freedom fighter and an organiser of the Liberation War Prof Messer Uddin, also a witness of the case told The Daily Star, "We are happy with the judgment."
He said family members of many martyrs would also get some satisfaction from this verdict.
"People in Badarganj along with the whole district now have the judgment they expected against Azhar,"he added.
Abdur Rahman, another witness in the war crimes case who lost his father in the Liberation War, expressed satisfaction over the verdict.
People of different strata of life of Rangpur also expressed their happiness over the death penalty handed down to Azharul.