“I could not have died before I saw my husband and son’s killers hanged. Today, the death sentence for Kamaruzzaman removed a heavy burden from my heart,” said Jatiran Bewa, wife of martyr Khejur Ali, who was killed in the infamous Sohagpur genocide.
In 1971, eight members of Jaritan’s family, including her husband and son, were gunned down.
“They dragged my husband out of our house to the yard and shot him six times. When he wanted water, they shot him again and he breathed his last. They brought my treasure trove, my son Hashem, threw him on his father’s dead body and killed him as well. Then they stabbed my brother-in-law with a bayonet and eventually killed him shooting inside his mouth,” Jaritan thus described her dreadful experience 43 years back.
Jabeda Bewa, widow of another martyr Fazar Ali, said: “Kamaruzzaman, the leader of those who killed our men, has been sentenced to death. That is the least solace that we could have expected for our heavy hearts.”
Bewa is a title given to widows in some areas of Bangladesh.
Nure Maan Bewa, wife of martyr Jasimuddin, said: “The Pakistani soldiers did not know the area. Razakars and al-Badr members showed them the way. They are the ones who did the massacre, made us widows and killed our relatives. They told the Pakistan soldiers that there were freedom fighters in our village. Kamaruzzaman was their leader. The death sentence will give us blood for blood. We are happy.”
That infamous mass killing turned the Sohagpur village in Nalitabari of Sherpur “manless.” After that, just like uncountable other villages across the country, Sohagpur also came to be known as a “village of widows.”
These widows have all testified against Kamaruzzaman in the war crimes case.
Jalaluddin, son of 1971 martyr Safir Uddin, said they were happy with the verdict and scared too. “Kamaruzzaman’s followers have been threatening us. They said they would teach us a good lesson when there is a change in power.”
On July 25, 1971, Pakistani soldiers ran a massacre in Sohagpur village on the Indian border – some 36km from Sherpur district town. On that day, they, along with their Razakar and al-Badr collaborators, killed at least 187 men in just six hours.
They broke into people’s houses and brutally killed innocent peasants and labourers. Jamaat leader Kamaruzzaman, then a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami’s student front Islami Chhatra Sangha, was at the forefront.
A total of 34 widows of Liberation War martyrs live in the village today. For most of them, the only sources of income are the meagre allowances from the government and a few private banks which by no stretch of imagination are reasonable.
Many people from greater Sherpur area testified as prosecution witness against Kamaruzzaman before the International Crimes Tribunal, which handed down death sentence to the war criminal in May last year. The Supreme Court yesterday upheld that verdict after hearing Kamaruzzaman’s appeal petition.
One of them was Manwar Hossain Khan alias Mohan Munshie. “I wanted to be a freedom fighter. But Kamaruzzaman forced me to become the security guard of a torture cell that he had set up in the house of Suren Babu.”
Another witness Mojibur Rahman Panu said: “In 1971, Kamaruzzaman and his men picked me up from my house and took me to the Ahmadnagar camp. There they lined up many people and opened fire on them. I survived miraculously.”
Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Kamaruzzaman was sent to the gallows on seven counts of crimes against humanity including murder, genocide, torture and forced deportation.
