Bangladesh pays homage to martyred 1971 intellectuals

Dhaka: Bangladesh Saturday paid tributes to the assassinated 1971 intellectuals with thousands offering wreaths on a memorial for them two days the country witnessed the execution of the first war crimes convict Abdul Quader Mullah of fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami.

National flag was kept half mast across Bangladesh while President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina offered wreaths on the memorial for martyred intellectuals as the army bugles played the last post, marking the 42nd anniversary of Martyred Intellectual Day.

Thousands followed them in offering the homage at the memorial at Mirpur area after hundreds of youngsters joined an overnight candlelit vigil in memory of leading university professors, doctors, engineers and journalists and martyrs of other professionals for Bangladesh’s independence.

Main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief and ex-premier Khaleda Zia also offered wreaths on the memorial though crucial ally of her party’s crucial ally Jamaat was exposed to wrath afresh for carrying out the atrocities and massacre of the intellectuals siding with the Pakistani troops.

Violence across Bangladesh claimed seven lives in the past two days as Jamaat activists went on rampage protesting Mulah’s execution and in their desperate efforts to thwart the trial of their other party stalwarts for committing crimes against humanity in 1971 siding with Pakistani troops as they party was opposed to the independence.

Assailants of infamous Al Badr militia forces manned by the then Jamaat’s student wing are accused of annihilating most of the martyred intellectuals just two days ahead of the December 16, 1971 victory against Pakistan in their apparent attempt to expose to the new born country to a state of brainlessness.

But Bangladesh this year observed the day nearly six weeks after a special tribunal also handed down death penalty to the “operations in charge” of the intellectuals’ massacre Choudhury Mueenuddin and “chief executioner” Ashrafuzzaman Khan in their absentia.

Ex-journalist Mueenuddin and Khan had fled the country immediately after the independence and subsequently managed to obtain nationality of Britain and the United States respectively.

Officials, however, said efforts were underway to bring them back home to be exposed to gallops after the November 3 verdict by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal though Mueenuddin later in a comment to media in London visibly ridiculed the trial calling it a “farce” and said Bangladesh could do nothing to expatriate him.

But angers mounted against Jamaat as it called a nationwide general strike on December 15 tomorrow, a day ahead of the Victory Celebration to protest Mullah’s hanging and trial or conviction of several other party leaders.

“In the past 42 years, they never repented, they repeatedly declined to regret and seek apology for what they did in ‘71. . . now they went on rampage (to protest the war crimes trial) as they could not yet accept independent Bangladesh and its people,” martyred journalist Sirajuddin Hossain’s son Zahid Reza Noor told a TV channel.

Security analyst and former army general Abdur Rashid demanded the party to be declared a “terrorist outfit” for its attempts to “blackmail the state”.

“They are using ordinary people including women and children as human shield during clashes with law enforcement agencies and burning people to death torching running vehicles and attacking people on the street with petrol bombs to save their leaders . . . they should be declared a terrorist outfit,” Rashid told another channel.

One of the two special tribunals trying the war crimes suspects last month called Jamaat a “fascist” organisation while in a separate development the High Court earlier issued full text of a verdict declaring the party’s’ registration with the election commission “illegal”

Most Bangladeshis came to know about the intellectuals massacre only on December 16, 1971 when their slaughtering ground was discovered at Dhaka’s Rayer Bazar area on the bank of Buriganga river but most of the identified Al Badr men went into hiding by that time.

But they resurfaced years later when Jamaat was allowed return to politics following the August 15, 1975 coup that killed Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu Shaikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members and toppled his post independence government.