The three men are respected members of the community; one the vice chairman of the East London Mosque, one the head teacher at an Islamic school, and the other the Imam of a mosque in Birmingham. But thirty six years ago, it was a different story. The three were members of the Jamaat-e-Islam and Al-Badr groups in Bangladesh during the war of 1971, collaborators that the Pakistani army used to terrorise the civilian population. Evidence of their brutality can be found from the unnamed bodies found in the Rayerbazar mass grave, to the memories of women who had been shanghaied into being sex slaves for the occupying army. All three are now British citizens, never having been questioned for their crimes. The Channel 4 documentary ‘Bangladesh, War Crimes File’ brings these questions back, literally to their doorsteps, stating ‘they will now have to answer’.
The documentary by David Bergman follows the exploits of these three, among the many war criminals still wanted for the atrocities in 1971, through interviews and evidence given by victims, bystanders and survivors of their actions. Also emphasised is the fact that trail and extradition of these war criminals are possible under British law as by the terms of the Geneva Convention. ‘If someone has committed war crimes, in whatever country, they can be caught regardless of wherever they that,’ says Lord Archer of Sandwell, Vice Chairman, Parliamentary War Crimes Group.
On the night of March 25, 1971, the Pakistani army entered Dhaka, setting up barricades and imposing a curfew. A man shows us an old photo of his father and younger brother lying dead on the streets of Old Dhaka, killed by the Pakistanis. ‘My brother was stabbed to death, and my father was shot once in the chest,’ he says. The scene then shifts to Dhaka University, with footage of Hindu students being machine gunned to death on the lawns. ‘This is where they found his body,’ says Meghna Guhuathukura of her father, a member of the English faculty of the university, pointing to a small shrine in the campus. ‘There were over three hundred bodies here.’
‘We had no idea of what was to be unleashed that night by the Pakistanis,’ says Kamal Hossain, foreign minister of Bangladesh from 1973-1975. The Pakistani army found some support from the populace in the name of religious jihad against the separatists. Abu Sayeed, who now runs an Islamic school in the East End of London, was one of them. When questioned, he retorts, ‘I challenge any of you, here or in Bangladesh, to prove these allegations.’
Bergman travels to Sylhet, Sayeed’s birthplace and home, where he speaks to Sayeed’s old acquaintances, Shabbir Jalalabadi. ‘He was involved with the student wings of Jamaat-e-Islam from the start,’ he says. Firmly pro-Pakistani, Jamaat brought out several processions in the city chanting slogans against the rebels, and issued a fatwa against the Mukti Bahini. Jamaat’s leader in Sylhet at the time was Lutfur Rahman, now the imam at the Bordesley Green Mosque in Birgmingham. He was to lead processions to known followers of the Awami League, beat them and loot their homes. A leaflet was issued throughout the city stating, ‘we must eliminate people who are traitors, miscreants, separatists and rumour mongers…’ ‘Lutfur Rahman gave a speech in which he listed names of people who had connections with the Awami League and the Mukti Bahini, and ruled that their house would be burnt to the ground,’ says Mofique Uddin. When questioned by Bergman at his front door, Lutfur claimed to be too sick to answer questions, and that he wasn’t there at the times of the fatwa.
By May of 1971, the Mukti Bahini had escalated its operations against the occupiers, and the Pakistanis realised that they needed more help from local collaborators. In Dhaka, Al-Badr, a para-military wing, was created to further assist them; Abu Sayeed was the senior commander in Sylhet. ‘They were formed under the false pretext of jihad,’ says an eye-witness, who chooses to remain anonymous. ‘In Sylhet, Lutfur Rahman was still the head, but Abu Sayeed was his number two, and the cadre in charge of executions.’
Another of Jamaat and Al-Badr’s tasks was to supply women as prostitutes for the Pakistani army. ‘They didn’t differentiate between Hindus or Muslims or anything,’ says Syeda Jebunessa Hoque, who worked at a tea garden in Sylhet. ‘They just grabbed any girl they could find and raped them. They raped girls in front of their fathers. Jamaat and Al Badr took thousands of women this way.’ But when Abu Sayeed is confronted with this evidence, he just claims it to be ridiculous.
In Dhaka, Al-Badr’s Operations-in-Charge was Chowdhury Mueen Uddin, who is now the Vice Chairman of the East London Mosque. At the time, Mueen worked as a journalist. ‘He was the first person to mention the formation of Al-Badr, before any other newspapers had any idea,’ says colleague Atiqur Rahman. Mueen was relatively new in Dhaka but was already well known in Feni. ‘We had informers who told us of his frequent visits to Al-Badr headquarters,’ says Professor Joynal Abedin, a member of the Mukti Bahini charged with reporting on Al-Badr and Jamaat. Another freedom fighter, Giasuddin Ahmed Nanu says, ‘We were given a list of ten or twelve people whom headquarters believed to be Al-Badr collaborators; Chowdhury Mueen Uddin was on the top of that list.’
During the final days of the occupation, the Pakistani army was on the verge of collapse, having been soundly beaten back by the Mukti Bahini and Indian army which was now fighting on their side. This culminated in Al-Badr’s last effort at destroying what would be the new country of Bangladesh, the infamous massacre of intellectuals in Rayerbazaar. Dolly Chowdhury recounts the day her husband, Moffazel Hyder Chowdhury, was taken away by Al-Badr. ‘They stormed into the house brandishing guns and with gamchas over their faces. While being taken away, my husband pulled down the gamcha from one of the men’s faces, I recognised him immediately. It was Chowdhury Mueen Uddin; I knew him because he used to come to our house to study.’
Dulu Rahman, whose brother Golam Mustofa had been taken by Al-Badr, resorted to searching at the Rayerbazaar mass grave as the last option for finding his body. ‘We went through bodies that were rotting and melting, holding cloth to our faces to keep out the stench. We somehow searched like that but never found his body.’
After the Pakistani surrender, Atiqur Rahman pointed out one Khaleq Majumdar to the Mukti Bahini as a member of Al-Badr. ‘He claimed innocence, and said that Mueen Uddin was the one responsible, as he was the operations in charge. He was willing to put it in writing too.’ Khaleq was later pardoned for providing evidence against Mueen. Joynal Abedin was given the task of arresting Mueen, but it was found that he had already escaped the country. In more recent times, Mueen had been one of those connected to the fatwa issued to Salman Rushdie.
‘The Geneva Convention is designed to aid the capture of these criminals that are hiding in other countries,’ says Lord Archer. ‘If it can’t do that, then the laws are rather pointless.’ Journalist Enayetullah Khan, recorded on film in Rayerbazaar in 1971 and then by Bergman twenty four years later, says, ‘It is a tragedy of our time that these people now hold positions of power in our country as law makers and such. It is our national failure.’
Sources : http://www.newagebd.com/2007/dec/16/victoryday07/v08.html