Sedition case against Mojaheed, Quader Mollah, Shah Hannan

From left: Ali Ahsan M Mojaheed, Abdul Quader Mollah and Shah Md Abdul Hannan

A sedition case was filed with a Dhaka court yesterday against Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Mollah and ex-chairman of Islami Bank Shah Md Abdul Hannan.
The court ordered Tejgaon Police Station to register it as a regular case filed against the three for their anti-liberation activities.
In the petition case filed with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court, petitioner Mohammad Fazlur Rahman also appealed to the court to issue arrest warrant against the three accused.
After hearing the petition, Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Emran Hossain Chowdhury passed the order to Tejgaon police and directed the officer-in-charge (OC) to submit a report after proper investigation into the matter.
The accused worked against the Liberation War and carried out massacres by forming Al Badr, Al Shams and Razakar forces in 1971. Thus they committed sedition, the case statement said.
Moreover, the accused recently started making fresh derogatory remarks on the Liberation War by terming it a civil war, and denying the existence of anti-liberation forces.
"I have been compelled to take refuge of the law since the state, Ministry of Liberation War Affairs, home ministry and freedom fighters' organisations have not taken any legal action against the war criminals," said complainant Fazlur Rahman, a freedom fighter of Sector-2.
The case statement mentioned that Mojaheed, who was the social welfare minister of the BNP-Jamaat-led four-party coalition government, on October 25 denied his party's anti-liberation role, and claimed that anti-liberation forces never existed in the country. On the next day, Hannan, also a former chairman of the National Board Revenue, in a private satellite television talk show termed the Liberation War a 'civil war' and made derogatory remarks on it.
Quader Mollah at a discussion on October 31 said the freedom fighters joined the Liberation War being allured by beautiful Indian women, and for grabbing property of the Hindus in the country. Three criminal cases including one for sedition were filed against Quader with a Madaripur court for his derogative remarks.
By denying the Liberation War, they have committed sedition, the complaint said. "We will have to bear the shame forever if these criminals are not punished for their heinous crimes," argued Fazlur, a resident of south Kamerkanda in Keraniganj.
He filed the case under sections 121-A and 123 - A of Bangladesh Penal Code. The sections deal with the sedition charges and punishment for committing such offences.
Section 121-A says whoever within or without Bangladesh conspires to commit any of the offences to deprive Bangladesh of the sovereignty of her territories or any part thereof, or conspires to overawe by means of criminal force or the show of criminal force, the government, shall be punished with imprisonment for life or any shorter term.
In the case, the complaint made the editor and news editor of the Prothom Alo and editor the Bhorer Kagoj as witnesses.
When contacted last night, Tejgaon police said they are yet to get copy of the sedition case filed with court.
According to newspaper reports, speeches and statements of those accused of war crimes, and findings of different probe bodies including the People's Enquiry Commission, Mojaheed, who was president of the then East Pakistan Islami Chhatra Sangha and chief of the infamous Al Badr Bahini back in 1971, helped the occupation Pakistan army commit massacre, loot and rape.
Only two days before the Liberation War ended, he led the killings of renowned academics, litterateurs, doctors, engineers, journalists and other eminent personalities to leave the nation intellectually crippled.
Quader Molla was known as a 'butcher' to Bangalees in Mirpur of Dhaka in 1971. Mirpur at the time was mainly populated by non-Bangalee Muslim migrants from India, many of whom actively collaborated with the occupation army.
One of the largest mass graves of people butchered by Pakistani troops and their lackeys was discovered in Shialbari area of Mirpur after the independence. Quader was behind the killing of thousands of Bangalees in Shialbari and Rupnagar areas of Mirpur in 1971. He had started killing people even before the occupation army's mass killing, local people said.
Jamaat was constitutionally banned for its anti-liberation activities. But the ban was lifted in 1976.