A prosecution witness on Wednesday said alleged al-Badr leader Chowdhury Mueen Uddin had taken him to several places including Mohammadpur Physical Training Centre to look for his brother martyred intellectual ANM Golam Mostafa.
ANM Golam Rahman Dulu, the eighth prosecution witness, said Mueen Uddin had also accompanied him to the office of Islami Chhatra Sangha (the then student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami) situated at Purana Paltan.
The Mohammadpur centre was where al-Badr headquarters was located, where the abducted pro-liberation people were taken and tortured.
Dulu said his brother worked at the same newspaper with Mueen, the daily Purbadesh. Then news editor of the paper Ehtesham Haider Chowdhury asked Mueen to help Dulu to find out his brother Golam Mostafa, who was abducted only days before the country's independence.
"Following Ehtesham's request, Mueen took me at first to the Islami Chhatra Sangha office at Purana Paltan and he went inside alone. A few minutes later he came out and said nobody had any information about my brother. Later he took me to the Ramna police station and went inside alone, again. Coming back after 10 minutes, he told me the same thing. Then I told him about searching at Mohammadpur Physical Training Centre. He seemed a bit uncomfortable but agreed to go with me there," said the 65-year-old witness.
"I saw militia personnel who stood up to attention (a military custom of showing respect to seniors) while Mueen was entering in the centre. I was on the rickshaw but I could hear Mueen talking to a guard in front of the gate. On his way to the centre gate, I heard both of them mentioning one Ashraf's name. After around 15- 20 minutes, Mueen came back and said he did not find any trace of my brother."
Dulu said just before the curfew began around 4pm, he went to Purbadesh office and shared the experience with his brother's colleague Atiqur Rahman, who was the senior staff reporter at the newspaper. "I also mentioned Mueen was talking about one Ashraf, Atiqur bhai responded 'it must be Ashrafuzzaman Khan.'"
Describing the abduction of Golam Mostafa, the witness said around 6am in the morning on December 11, 1971, few militia and al-Badr members stopped in front of their Gopibagh residence in Dhaka. Those people came on a jeep and a microbus. They had also brought with them Shamsuddoha, the brother of Golam Mostafa's wife, to help them identify the house.
"At one point, they knocked the door and my brother opened it. Some of them particularly who entered inside our house were wearing plain dress. The rest, who were guarding our house with arms, had ash-coloured dress, a colour used by militia forces. Some of them were masked. People who entered our house asked my brother whether he was Golam Mostafa or not. My brother answered yes. They then took my brother away," said Dulu, who was 23 years old then.
Later around 8am in the morning, the witness said he went to the Purbadesh office and met his brother's colleague Ehtesham and Atiqur. He heard that other journalists including Siraj Uddin Hossain and Syed Nazmul Haque were also abducted the same way on December 10.
"My brother was abducted and killed because he believed in Bangalee nationalism and he wrote several write ups on his beliefs. Mueen and my brother had an ideological conflict since my brother believed in the freedom of Bangladesh," he told the tribunal.
Quoting Atiqur, he said a heated argument had taken place between his brother and Mueen Uddin on the liberation war and of the role of Jamaat, few days before Golam Mostafa was abducted.
"Atiqur also told me that at one point of the argument, Mueen threatened my brother with dire consequences."
He also said both Atiqur and Ehtesham shared their observation on his brother's abduction and killing. All of them believed that Mueen was behind the killing of the intellectuals including his brother.
Dulu also mentioned daily Purbadesh reports and the documentary "War Crimes Files" as a reference to Mueen and Ashraf's involvement with the intellectual killings.
He said they searched for the body of his brother at several killing grounds including the one in Rayerbazar. "But we did not find his body," he said.
Later, defence lawyer Abdus Shukur Khan and Salma Hye cross examined the witness. The tribunal set Sunday for further proceedings of the case.
Three more prosecution witnesses
The tribunal on Wednesday allowed a prosecution plea seeking permission to produce three more witnesses to testify against the fugitive war crimes suspects.
The defence lawyers appointed by the state did not oppose the plea.
The witnesses are Delwar Hossain, the lone survivor from Rayerbazar mass killing ground; Farzana Chowdhury Nipa, the daughter of martyred intellectual Dr Alim Chowdhury; and Nusrat Rabbi, the daughter of Fazle Rabbi.
Earlier, the prosecution submitted a list of 33 witnesses in the case.
Both the accused are facing 16 charges of crimes against humanity that include genocide, killing, looting and arson. The charges include the killing of 18 intellectuals including Shahidullah Kaiser and Selina Parvin.