Two prosecution witnesses on Monday told the International Crimes Tribunal-2 that both of them had been severely tortured at the behest of Mir Quasem Ali, Chittagong head of Al Badr – a vigilante group of Jamaat-e-Islami – during the 1971 Liberation War.
Mohammad Salauddin, an interior decorator, now 60, and Mohammad Zakaria, cycle-rickshaw mechanic, 72, made the identical statement before the tribunal while testifying against Mir Quasem Ali, now a policymaker of Jamaat-e-Islami, separately as PW-9 and PW-10 respectively.
According to the statements of the two PWs, a group of Al Badr had picked them up from their respective house at Chandgaon in Chittagong in the wee hours in the last part of November 1971 and dumped them at Dalim Hotel, a den of Al Badr, where they had been tortured at the behest of accused Mir Quasem Ali.
Quasem Ali himself grilled them for extracting information about the movement of the freedom fighters and their hideouts, the two PWs said, adding but he failed to get any information from them.
The depositions over, the two PWs faced cross-examination by defence counsel Mizanul Islam one after another.
During the cross-examination, PW-9 M Salauddin told the tribunal that he did not hear of any event of warfare in his area within a fortnight of his capture. “Although I heard the names of Al Badr and Razakar, actually I had know knowledge who were they.”
Asked what prompted his uncle PW-8 EskenderAlam Chowdhury, ground engineer at Pakistan Air Force in 1971, to quit his job, Salauddin said: “I don’t know.”
Meanwhile, while facing cross–examination, PW-10 M Zakaria told the tribunal that he had no idea whether the members of Al Badr were recruited from the locality or from outside.
“A group of Al Badr wearing mask, along with some members of occupation army had come to pick me up from my house and took me to Dalim Hotel,” he said, adding that he had no idea about the members of Peace Committee (collaborator).
Asked about his cousin PW-8 Eskender Alam Chowdhury, a deserter from Pakistan Air Force, PW-10 Zakaria said: “I have no idea about his profession.”
Replying to a defence suggestion, Zakaria said: “It’s not true that I don’t know any other Al Badr or Razakar sans Mir Quasem Ali, the commander of Al Badr.”
“It’s also not true that PW-9 Salauddin and I had been freed from Al Badr captivity on the same day,” he added.
On May 26 last year, the tribunal took cognisance of the charges made against Quasem Ali, also chairman of private television channel Diganta (operation now suspended), as it found a strong prima facie case against the accused under subsections 3(2), 4(1) and 4(2) of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973.
Quasem Ali, the then Chittagong district head of Al Badr, a vigilante group of Jamaat-e-Islami, faces 14 counts of charges of crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
The charge ‘extortion’ has been included for the first time by the prosecution marking it as crimes against humanity under subsection 3 (2) (a) of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973.
According to the prosecution, Quasem Ali, also a 1971 front-ranking leader of Islami Chhatra Sangha (ICS), had perpetrated various crimes against humanity like killing, looting, abduction, persecution, genocide, rape, extortion, and setting fire to the houses of unarmed civilians during the Liberation War in collaboration with Pakistan occupation army.
On June 17, 2012, plainclothes police arrested Jamaat leader Quasem Ali from the office of the vernacular daily Nayadiganta in the capital hours after the tribunal issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of his alleged crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
Source: UNB Connect