The BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami nexus is the most prolific perpetrator of human rights violations in Bangladesh, said the speakers at a rally in Dhaka yesterday.
The rally was arranged in the Shahbagh area of the capital by three generations of victims of human rights violations at the hands of BNP-Jamaat.
Tarana Halim, president of Bangabandhu Sangskritik Jote and member of the Awami league central working. committee said: “BNP-Jamaat and their international allies have been responsible for the few cases of human rights violations. Conveniently, they attempt to overlook the long history of massive human rights violations during the BNP-Jamaat regime. They are unwilling to even listen to the other side of the story.
“What about the 1971 Liberation War, where three million Bengalis were killed and quarter million women were dishonoured. The UN has not yet recognized the 1971 atrocities as genocide,” she further said.
“In 1975, Ziaur Rahman enacted an indemnity law and gave indemnity to the killers of our architect of independence. We will make the unheard voices heard. We will make you, the people of the international human organizations, international alliance and BNP-Jamaat, listen to the unheard voices of the victims of atrocities of BNP-Jamaat loud and clear. Hear them out, listen to them, this is decimation of human rights,” added Tarana Halim.
Rajshahi City Corporation Mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton said: “Less than a month after the attack that left Mujib and his family members killed, my father and three other top Awami League leaders were ruthlessly shot to death inside prison on November 30.
“At the behest of Gen Zia, these killers broke into the prison and killed my father. The attempts to annihilate the Father of the Nation and then eliminate then top AL leaders who were close associates to Mujib speak of a typical mindset that clearly stood against the spirit of the Liberation War and rather looked to plunge the country into a pit of communalism,”, added Liton, a presidium member of Awami League.
Kamruzzaman Lenin, who also lost his father in the purge following the assassination of Bangabandhu, said: “These extrajudicial killings were executed from a political viewpoint - the ideology that opposed the country's independence. In the independent land, the force made all-out efforts to wipe out the ideals our relatives fought for. I still don't know where the remains of my father are.”
According to the organizers, the focus of the rally was to provide the full perspective on phases of human rights violations in Bangladesh and address the one-sided and fabricated narrative that lends the impression that the present government is responsible for all human rights violations in the country.
Among the three generations at the rally, the first generation belongs to the 1970s, when millions of Bengalis became victims of largescale atrocities perpetrated by the Pakistan army and their local collaborators. This was followed by the massacre of the families of senior Awami League leaders, including Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, and the extra judicial killings and summary hangings by the first military regime headed by Gen Ziaur Rahman.
Freedom fighters and Biranganas joined the rally along with family members of assassinated leaders.
The second generation of victims who suffered atrocities at the hands of BNP-Jamaat cadres during the last Islamist government (2001-2006) included minorities, women, opposition activists, and more.
The third generation belong to families who suffered at the hands of BNP-Jamaat in the last decade.
