The International Crimes Tribunal 2 on June 21 last year indicted Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed on seven charges of crimes against humanity.
The then chairman of the tribunal, Justice ATM Fazle Kabir, framed the charges that include murder, torture and imprisonment of people, genocide, and hatching a conspiracy to kill intellectuals during the Liberation War.
Until September 1971, Mujaheed was secretary and later president of East Pakistan Islami Chhatra Sangha, now Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat.
BNP chief Khaleda Zia had appointed him as a technocrat minister for social welfare in her cabinet during the BNP-led four-party alliance rule in 2001-2006.
In the charge framing order, the tribunal said during the war, the Pakistan army had set up a camp at Mohammadpur Physical Training Institute, Dhaka, and members of razakar and al-Badr forces used to receive training at the camp while was well-known as a “torture camp.”
The tribunal said: “You [Mujaheed] used to visit the camp regularly with your co-leaders and with intent to annihilate the Bangalee population, and design, plan and conspire with senior army officers of the camp... following such conspiracy and planning, the intellectuals’ killings were committed from December 10.”
Killing of Sirajuddin Hossain
The tribunal said Mujaheed had written an article, published in the Jamaat mouthpiece Daily Sangram on September 16, 1971, countering an article written by Sirajuddin Hossain, the then executive editor of daily Ittefaq.
Sirajuddin had written on the sufferings of unarmed civilians at the hands of the agents of Pakistani army. In his piece, Mujaheed had called Sirajuddin an “agent of India.”
“Sirajuddin Hossain, a notable journalist of the country and a member of the group of intellectuals, became the target of the Jamaat-e-Islami and al-Badr Bahini,” said the tribunal, adding, “On the night of December 10, 1971, seven to eight youths, with faces covered with monkey caps and equipped with rifles, abducted Sirajuddin Hossain from his rented house at 5, Chamelibagh, Dhaka. He never returned, nor was his body found.”
Rumi murder
Justice Fazle Kabir said on August 30, 1971, Mujaheed and Matiur Rahman Nizami went to the army camp at old MP Hostel in Nakhalpara, Dhaka. They tortured Altaf Mahmud, Jahir Uddin Jalal, Badi, Rumi (son of Jahanara Imam), Jewel and Azad who were kept imprisoned there.
The tribunal said: “Then you told one army captain that before the proclamation of clemency by the president, they [detainees] would have to be killed. Following this decision, you with the assistance of accomplices killed the civilian detainees by causing inhuman torture.”
The dead bodies of the victims could not even be traced.
Bakchar village
The tribunal in its order said Mujaheed accompanied by his accomplices on May 13, 1971 had attacked the Hindu community of Bakchar village in Faridpur and tied up at least nine people. The wife of Upen Saha, one of the detainees, even requested for the release of her husband in exchange of money and jewellery.
“Following your [Mujaheed] instruction, your accomplices killed all the apprehended civilians belonging to the Hindu community,” said the tribunal. "You [Mujaheed] and your accomplices looted and burnt the house of one Anil Saha and by such discriminatory and persecutory conduct, you compelled villagers to depart for India," said the tribunal.
Baidyadangi, Majhidangi and Baladangi
In the middle of May in 1971, Mujaheed accompanied by one Hammad Maulana of Faridpur town, 8-10 non-Bangalees and Pakistani army men, launched an attack on Hindu-dominated Baidyadangi, Majhidangi and Baladangi villages.
The tribunal said the attack was made with the intention to destroy the community either in whole or partly. It said 50-60 Hindus were killed in indiscriminate gunfire and their houses were burnt down.
Torture of Ranjit
In the first week of June during the war, razakars apprehended Ranjit Nath of Rathkhola in Faridpur and brought him before Pakistani army’s Maj Akram at the Old Circuit House. Mujaheed was also present there.
The tribunal said getting a signal from Mujaheed after talks with the army personnel, some razakars and non-Bangalee people took Ranjit to the house of one Abdur Rashid. Ranjit was kept confined in the house and tortured.
Torture at Faridpur stadium
On July 26, 1971, razakars abducted Abu Yusuf, suspecting him to be a freedom fighter, from Alfadanga in Faridpur and brought him to the army camp set up in Faridpur stadium.
The same day, Mujaheed went to the camp and said something to a Pakistani army officer which caused Yusuf to be tortured severely. The victim was kept there for 33 days when he was tortured inhumanly. He was moved to Jessore Cantonment later on.