A citizen committee will conduct ‘symbolic trials’ of the 195 members of the Pakistani Army who are accused of committing crimes against Bengalees during Bangladesh’s Liberation War.
The committee, styled International War Crimes Public Trial, announced the plan at a press conference in Dhaka on Friday.
Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan said the trials would be held at Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka on Mar 26, the Independence Day of Bangladesh.
He said the initiative was part of their movement to press for real trials of the Pakistan Army men.
Khan said, “We have pledged that those Army officials will be brought back and their cohorts in this country will be tried too. They won’t be spared.”
He said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would extend all-out support to the movement pressing for trials of the Pakistani soldiers accused of war crimes.
The minister said Pakistan, before repatriating the 195 soldiers after the Liberation War, had pledged to try them but later broke its word.
“Our movement (for their trials) will start through the symbolic trials. Our movement will continue until they are eliminated,” he added.
Bangladesh handed the soldiers over to Pakistan following a tripartite agreement in which Islamabad had committed to try them.
The government recently summoned the Pakistan high commissioner in Dhaka after Islamabad had expressed its concern over the trials and execution of Bangladeshi war criminals.
Within a week of Dhaka’s move, Islamabad summoned Bangladeshi high commissioner and denied the war crimes committed in 1971.
Islamabad’s reaction prompted different organisations and bodies, including the Ganajagaran Mancha, to demand trial of the Pakistani soldiers afresh and ask for discontinuation of ties with that country.
Shajahan Khan said, “95,000 members of the killer Pakistani Army and their cohorts Al-Badr, Al-Shams and Razakar carried out the most brutal mass murders of the world.”
“They disgraced thousands of our mothers and sisters. They will be tried for the most heinous crimes against humanity,” he said.
At the press conference, the committee announced some other programmes of their movement.
They include mass contact from Dec 19 to 30, a rally at Dhaka’s Shapla Chattar on Jan 3, and a sit-in demonstration in front of the National Press Club on Jan 6 demanding execution of war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami.
A media statement of the committee said journalist Abed Khan had replied to queries of the reporters at the press meet.
Freedom fighter Ismat Quadir Gama, Left leader Shirin Akhter, performing artists Shomi Kaiser and Rokeya Prachi, Anjan Roy and Kamal Pasha Chowdhury were present at the conference.
Source: bdnews24