STAFF CORRESPONDENT

A chilling photograph of the mutilated body of a victim of enforced disappearance was produced before the International Crimes Tribunal-1 yesterday, leaving the courtroom in silence.

The image showed the body of a man with limbs tied up, eyes blindfolded, and a woollen cap pulled over the head. The abdomen was cut open with entrails exposed, and the face disfigured beyond recognition.

Munni Akhter, wife of slain Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) member Md Nazrul Islam, recalled the brutal end of her husband while testifying as the third prosecution witness in a crimes against humanity case against Maj Gen (relieved) Ziaul Ahsan, who stands accused of abducting and killing 104 people.

“See what they did to my husband… what state they left him in,” Munni told the tribunal in a voice heavy with anguish, while struggling to hold back tears.

She described how the family had identified Nazrul from the same image after police recovered his body from the Baleshwar River in 2010, following his abduction.

Munni said her husband, a medical assistant at the BDR Hospital in Pilkhana, had witnessed killings during the 2009 BDR mutiny and fled the compound by scaling a wall to save his life.

Fearing for his safety, Nazrul went into hiding, moving to Keraniganj and later to Gopalganj, where he worked under a false identity, Nurul Amin Munshi, at a clinic in Kotalipara.

On March 15, 2010, he left for work but never returned.

The next day, Munni learned

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