Defence counsel declined to cross-examine PW-32 Bashanti Ghosh as she did not mention the name of Salauddin Quader Chowdhury over the mass killing that had taken place in the predominantly Hindu populated Unasatturpara on April 13, 1971.
While making testimony against Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, Bashanti told the International Crimes Tribunal-1 that her husband Manoranjan Ghosh had been one of the victims of the occupation army atrocities in Unasatturpara. However, she could not tell the exact date of the massacre.
Bashanti said that her husband had been captured from their house by the army along with a local man when he had returned home from the local market.
“The army had beaten me when I held my husband in my arms after he was captured,” she recalled.
The PW-32 said the raiders had taken her husband to the bank of a pond owned by Khitish Mohajan. The army had gunned down her husband in a line with many other detained people, she said.
The three-member-tribunal, headed by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir, adjourned the trial proceedings for May 6 (Monday).
Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a BNP stalwart, faces 23 counts of charges under different provisions of section 3 (2) of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973.
The charges include genocide in collaboration with Pakistan occupation army, killing, extermination of Hindu minority groups, deportation, persecution and abduction in Chittagong district.