Brother of martyred Rumi happy as verdict covers massacre of intellectuals
Shafi Imam Rumi
Forgoing a bright career, his brother sacrificed his life fighting for the motherland; unheeding fatal cancer, his ailing mother continued with her struggle to bring war criminals to book.
Coming from such a family, it was no surprise when the only surviving member of Shaheed Rumi’s family, Saif Imam Jami, the youngest son of Shaheed Janani Jaharana Imam, termed the verdict in Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed’s case important because it took the killing of intellectuals during the Liberation War into account.
“I am happy about the verdict, not because it is about my brother and his co-fighters but more importantly because he [Mojaheed] has been given death penalty for the massacre of intellectuals,” he said.
“Their [the intellectual’s] souls need to rest in peace. No one has fought for them,” he told The Daily Star over the phone.
Mojaheed, convicted of murder, torture, and imprisonment of people and conspiring to kill intellectuals during the Liberation War, was held responsible for the death of guerilla freedom fighter Shafi Imam Rumi.
He was found guilty for Charge-5 related to the killing of Rumi, Badi Jewel, Azad and Altaf Mahmud at the army camp set up in Nakhalpara, Dhaka, during the Liberation War.
After the detention of these valiant freedom fighters they were kept confined to at the army camp in the old MP hostel in Nakhalpara.
On August 30, 1971, Mojaheed went there with another Jamaat-e-Islami leader Matiur Rahman Nizami and told an army captain that the detainees would have to be killed before the proclamation of clemency by the president.
Mojaheed’s advice had the torture on the detainees intensified. The bodies of the detainees could not be found even after the independence on December 16, 1971.
It is believed that Rumi was executed along with the others on the night of September 4, 1971.
In the verdict, the Tribunal said, “by act of being present at the army camp and behaving brutally with detained victims even in presence of army official and providing ‘advice’ to liquidate the victims before the President’s clemency came into effect, as stated by P.W.2, inevitably formed part of attack which had substantial effect to the actual commission of the crime committed by the principals and as such he [accused] was ‘concerned with the commission’ of the killing alleged in charge no. 5.”
Mojaheed has been found guilty but according to Jami, justice remains incomplete until the verdict is carried out in the shortest possible time.
“We cannot keep them in jail for years, that is not justice,” he said.
Source: The Daily Star
To Whom It May Concern,
My name is Samin Mehbub Kaysar. I am a university student currently studying in the United States. The reason for this message is regarding Saif Imam Jami. I have been recently involved in a screenplay project which I hope will be produced into a feature length film. I am interested in covering the story of Rumi and adapting it into a screenplay. But for that to happen I need more information on Rumi’s biography and the Imam family as a whole. I have already done research on the Liberation War and about Rumi, but the web can provide such limited information on this courageous young martyr. I wanted to know if you happen to have any contact information of Jami such as his email so I can interview him regarding his older brother and his experiences with his brother through childhood years and up until the War? Please let me know.
Thank you.
It’s really good that you are trying to make a feature length film covering a story of a freedom fighter of Bangladesh Liberation war specially Shahid Rumi. You can find Rumi’s biography and also little bit about the Imam family in the book “একাত্তরের দিনগুলি” written by Shahid Janani Jahanara Imam, who is Rumi’s mom. You can find little bit about the training days of Rumi at Melaghar in the book “From school boys to guerillas” written by Salim Akbar, who was Rumi’s friend at that days, as well as co-fighter trained under the same sector which is sector 2 .
Hope so, this two books can help you…….best of luck…:)