Motiur Rahman Nizami.
A witness testified before a war crimes tribunal that he saw Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami to line up 25 to 30 people minutes before they were shot down by Pakistani army in Pabna during the country’s Liberation War.
Khalilur Rahman, the eighth prosecution witness in the crimes against humanity case against Nizami, told this to the International Crimes Tribunal-1 on Monday.
Nizami accompanied the Pakistan army during a mass killing in Dhulaura village of Santhia upazila in Pabna in 1971, Khalilur, also a freedom fighter, told the ICT-1, two of its kind dealing with the war crimes cases.
Khalilur said hiding on a banyan tree, he saw that Nizami guided the Pakistan army to round up 25 to 30 locals and freedom fighters from the village on November 27.
Nizami also helped the army to line up the people by the Ichamoti River who were then shot and charged with bayonets, Khalilur told the tribunal during a cross-examination by Nizami’s counsel Mizanul Islam.
“I hid on the tree all night long and the next day at about 9:30am, went to check if anybody was alive there,” Khalilur said.
“I found two of my fellow freedom fighters–Shajahan Ali and Majed–alive there,” he added.
Shajahan, who is also the sixth prosecution witness in the case, previously testified before the court.
In his testimony on April 30, Shajahan identified Nizami as the mastermind behind the Dhulaura killings.
The three-member tribunal headed by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir with members Justice Obaidul Hassan and Judge M Shahinur Islam recorded Khalilur’s testimony before adjourning the case proceedings until Tuesday.
Source: The Daily Star
