Today is the 85th birth anniversary of Shaheed Janani Jahanara Imam who lost her freedom fighter son Rumi in the liberation war and blazed a trail in the war crimes trial movement.
Born this day in 1929, she died of cancer at 65 on June 26, 1994.
Different organisations, including Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committtee (Committee for Uprooting Collaborators and Killers of 1971) she had founded on Jan 19, 1992, will organise various programmes marking her birthday.
Under the banner of her organisation, she had led a strong movement demanding trial of all war criminals and a ban on all communal political partis, including Jamaat-e-Islami and its Islami Chhatra Shibir that opposed the birth of Bangladesh.
According to a communique signed by 101 personalities during the formation of the Committee, “We will try Ghulam Azam on the Gonoadalot (People’s Court) if the government does not try him for genocide and war crimes.”
The communique had also called for banning Jamaat-Shibir to rid the country’s politics of communal poison.
She had formed Muktijuddher Chetona Bastobayon-Ekattorer Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee along with all political parties, social, cultural, professional, students, women and freedom fighters organisation on March 26, 1992.
That organisation had held the trial of Ghulam Azam as symbolic at Suhrawardy Udyan when over 5,00,000 people attended regardless of all threats.
“The current trial of the war crimes is a result of Jahanara Imam’s movement and to foil it, Jamaat has begun conspiring at home and abroad,” said the Ekattorer Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee yesterday in a press release yesterday.
The Committee will begin its day-long programme today through paying respects to her by placing flowers at her grave at Dhaka’s Mirpur Martyred Intellectuals’ Graveyard.
It will hold a discussion on obstacles and successes of Jahanara Imam’s movement at Bilia Auditorium (House-22, Road-7) in Dhaka’s Dhanmandi at 4pm.
Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq will attend the discussion as the chief guest, with the Committee’s Advisor Justice Syed Amirul Islam in the chair.
Acting President of the Committee Shahriar Kabir, Sectors Commanders’ Forum’s acting Chairman KM Shafiullah, Bir Uttam, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad President Ayesha Khanam, among others, speak at the discussion.