Justice after forty- two years
THE wheels of justice have turned full circle. One of the cohorts of the Pakistan occupation army, a collaborator in their crimes and nine-months of brutality in Bangladesh in 1971, and himself a perpetrator, met his deserved fate. It would be some solace to the relatives of the victims to see that justice will have been done, albeit delayed.
With the hanging of Quader Mollah the trial of one of the accused in the crimes against humanity will have run its full course. In what was one of the most transparent and open trials, where the accused was given all the facilities to defend himself, something he did not accord to his many victims, and where all the legal procedures provided in the Constitution, including appeal, were made available to him, the sentence of death was awarded by the highest court of the country. That will, we hope, answer the critics and detractors of the trial about the clarity of the entire process.
We congratulate Sheikh Hasina and her government for not only starting the trial after long 40 years of the commission of the crimes but also executing the final verdict of the court in one instance; that, notwithstanding the dubious attempts by some quarters to malign the trial and make it controversial.
It was the aspiration of the people to see that the war criminals are given the highest punishment, and it would be unfair to the many victims of these criminals and to the martyred freedom fighters to see the execution as a revenge or retribution.
Comments