A prosecution witness thursday said both Chowdhury Mueen Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman Khan were among the people who had abducted Prof Giasuddin and later killed him during the 1971 Liberation War.
Farida Banu, 74, sister of the martyred intellectual, gave deposition at the International Crimes Tribunal 2 as the 16th prosecution witness. She is a retired associate professor of mathematics at Dhaka University. Prof Gias was a DU history department teacher and a house tutor of Mohsin Hall.
Mueen and Ashrafuzzaman were indicted jointly in 11 counts of crimes against humanity. The prosecution says Mueen was al-Badr’s “operation-in-charge” while Ashrafuzzaman played the role of “chief executor.”
The witness said: “On the December 14 morning, some youths along with two armed came in front of Prof Gias’s quarter on a mud-covered microbus. They came upstairs and asked about his whereabouts. Gias was not at the quarter at that time since he went to Mohsin Hall to supervise the water crisis.
“They left our house when we told them that he was not at the house. But few minutes after, they again came back and started to search the house and ransacked everything. During that time, Ratna engaged in an altercation with the abductors who then confined my cousin Golam so that he could tell them the whereabouts of my brother [Gias],” Farida stated.
“Later, Golam came back and told us that brother [Gias] was taken away by those abductors. Golam also told us that Gias was blindfolded with a gamcha [local towel] of a security guard, Rahim. The last sentence of my brother was ‘inform the eldest brother-in-law about my situation.’ Our eldest brother-in-law Abdul Momen Khan was a top-posted government official then,” Farida added.
“Momen and my husband Nurul went to the hospital to search my brother’s body. But, my brother’s body was not there. We came to know that one Mofiz, who was the driver of the mud-covered microbus [which the al-Badr members had used to pick up the intellectuals on the eve of liberation] told about Mueen and Ashrafuzzaman’s involvement in the killing of intellectuals. I heard Ashrafuzzaman was the man who shot the intellectuals whereas Mueen was the mastermind,” Farida said.
The next day they found Prof Gias’s decomposed body at Mirpur killing field by examining his shirt, sweater and lungi.
“Later, in several newspapers including the daily Purbadesh, I saw reports on Mueen and Ashrafuzzaman. I also remember a particular report that said about Ashrafuzzaman’s diary containing the list of intellectuals whom he chose to kill. Even there were tick marks beside the name of intellectuals who were picked up on the eve of the liberation. I still have copies of those reports,” the witness said.
Farida said after the abduction, daughter of the victim said she had recognised two of the abductors Mueen Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman.”
State defence counsels Abdus Shukkur Khan and Salma Hye cross examined the witness.
