PM: Zia gave war criminals carte blanche

She also accused BNP of disgracing the country’s flag by handing it over to war criminals, hinting at the cabinet positions handed to two war criminals, Motiur Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, during BNP’s reign in 2001-2006. The premier also vowed to bring the collaborators of the Pakistan army during the 1971 Liberation War to book. “There was no way Pakistanis could have killed our intellectuals if there were no traitors, al-badr and al-shams here,” she said this on Wednesday while addressing a discussion in Dhaka’s Krishibid Institute auditorium marking the Martyred Intellectuals Day. She added that those, who provided shelter to the people involved in killings during the Liberation War, especially after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, will be tried too. “After the killing of Banglabandhu, the history was suppressed to keep the new generation in the dark about it,” she continued. “Those days too are now history. We want to build next generation in such a way so that they can know the real history of the nation and respect the martyred intellectuals, follow their ideology and become patriotic,” she said.