STAFF CORRESPONDENT

A grieving mother told a tribunal yesterday that her teenage son, who had been waiting for lunch, left their Gendaria home in Dhaka in 2011 after receiving a phone call just as she was about to serve the meal, and never returned alive.

She said she waited with his meal until Asr prayers, but her son Sajal, then 17, did not return. She and her elder son later searched for him at hospitals, police stations and other places for over a week.

“The police did not help us in any way,” she told the tribunal.

Nine days later, on July 13, 2011, the family learned that two bodies were lying in a hospital in Gazipur. Her elder son Azad went there with a friend and identified Sajal’s body.

“The next day, we brought the body and buried him at Jurain graveyard,” she said.

Bhulu Begum, a 52-year-old domestic worker, was testifying before the International Crimes Tribunal-1 as the second prosecution witness in a crimes against humanity case against Maj Gen (retd) Ziaul Ahsan.

She said her son had been involved in BNP politics and regularly attended rallies and meetings.

“I later came to know that a senior officer of the Rapid Action Battalion [Rab] picked up Sajal and killed him in Gazipur because of his political activities,” she said, breaking down in tears.

“I want justice for my son’s killing,” she said, as Ziaul sat in the dock.

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