Awami League president and five-time former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has rejected the trials at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD), terming it a mechanism of the war criminal Jamaat-e-Islami to stage a mockery of justice.
Those who represented the 1971 war criminals at the ICT-BD and are linked to the Jamaat have now become the tribunal chairman and its prosecutors. โWe can assume what verdict will come from here,โ she said in an audio message on Tuesday.
โWill we get justice? Will the people of Bangladesh get justice? No, it will not happen,โ she said, mentioning the acquittal of death-row convict ATM Azharul Islam, the commander of the al-Badr force in Rangpur.
โIt is a farce in the name of trials.โ
She said Yunus has revised the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973 (Amendment, 2013), and cases have been filed against her through executive power.
โThere are about 450 cases against me. Cases have been filed against countless Awami League workers. There are cases against the police force and the armed forces. No one is spared; cases are being filed against everyone.โ
Sheikh Hasina said that Yunus has seized power by using the militants. The charges of mass killings are baseless. During the movement, people were killed by their hired killers and militants. Even former home adviser Shakhawat Hossain admitted this.
Notably, while preparing the charges, the tribunalโs prosecution team has not considered the murder, arson, and looting in July-August and afterwards by the activists of the National Citizen Party (NCP), BNP, Jamaat-Shibir, Hefazat-e-Islam, Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish and militant groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) and Jamaat-ut-Dawa, who have publicly admitted their direct involvement.
On Sunday, the ICT-BD received five formal charges pressed against Sheikh Hasina, her home minister, and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun.
Sheikh Hasina and Kamal have been staying in India since the August 5 changeover, while the former IGP is in custody.
In another message on Sunday, Sheikh Hasina said: โPolice did not take action against the students till July 15. We gave them protection. But they started anarchy, torched government buildings, metrorail, the Mayor Hanif flyover, and the state TV stationโฆ They took to the streets with sharp weapons, sticks and firearms. They killed the police and hanged their bodies from the overbridge.
โIn his address in New York last year, Yunus himself said there was no leader in the movement, no leaders. We were also looking for a leader. He introduced a mastermind, Mahfuj Alam, and said the movement was a meticulously designed thing to overthrow the government.
โThey have continued the mob rule to date.โ
In an interview with the Wall News, former minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said on Sunday that police took action in self-defense to save peopleโs lives and property. They can open fire as a last resort as per the law and the casualties occurred.
โPolice members tried to save their lives, save arms in the police station, and ensure security at the jails.
โWe did not need to give them orders to kill the protesters. The commanding officers do this. Our police showed restraint. They performed their duties.
โThey first warned the protesters through whistles, then put up barricades, lobbed tear gas shells, and used water cannons. They opened fire when the anarchists attacked the police and were torching properties.โ
Azharโs crimes are proven
Regarding the crimes committed by war criminal Azhar, Sheikh Hasina said that he used to pick up girls and hand them over to the Pakistani occupying forces. Even the pregnant women were raped day after day. A womanโs unborn child diedโฆher life was destroyed.
In this way, they took hundreds of girls to the army camps in Rangpur. The al-Badr members even shot and killed many freedom fighters and innocent people. They carried out genocide in the entire area, she said, adding that there is complete evidence of these crimes.
โEven now, the local people know about Azhar’s notoriety, and it is proven. So, he was sentenced. But today he has been pardoned and released.โ
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