Mojaheed pressed Pak army for hasty killings

Top Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed was involved in killing many people, including freedom fighters and intellectuals, during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971, according to the findings of the prosecution.
The International Crimes Tribunal yesterday received the formal charge of crimes against Mojaheed after a resubmission by the prosecution.
The tribunal On December 28 last year returned the charge against Mojaheed saying that it had not been arranged properly and asked the prosecution to resubmit a formal charge in an arranged and classified manner by January 16 (yesterday).
The three-judge tribunal, headed by its Chairman Justice Md Nizamul Huq, yesterday fixed January 26 for passing an order on whether it would take the charge against Mojaheed into cognisance for trial.
The fresh charge contains 34 incidents of crime allegedly committed by Mojaheed, secretary general of Jamaat, during the war.
Yesterday after the submission, Prosecutor Mukhlesur Rahman Badal told The Daily Star that they have found proof that Mojaheed (now in jail) had been involved in the killing of eminent music composer Altaf Mahmud and well-known freedom fighter Shafi Imam Rumee.
Rumee is a son of Jahanara Imam, also known as Shaheed Janani (mother of martyr). In her highly-admired book "Ekattorer Dinguli", Jahanara Imam gave account of the days of the nine-month Liberation War and Rumee's murder.
The prosecutor said, “The then Pakistani occupation army confined six people including Altaf Mahmud and Rumee at the Old MP Hostel in Nakhalpara area of the capital in August 1971.
"Mojaheed and his superior Motiur Rahman Nizami on August 30, 1971 told the occupation army to kill the confined people before the then Pakistan president Yahya Khan had declared amnesty for "separatists" and "miscreants" (freedom fighters).
In September, 1971, Yahya declared amnesty asking the miscreants and separatists to surrender.
The prosecutor said the occupation force and their collaborators led by Mojaheed had killed 50 to 60 men and women after looting and setting fire to 300 to 350 houses in Hindu dominated Baidyadangi and Majhidangi villages of Charvodrason Thana in Faridpur district in mid-May, 1971.
Mojaheed, the then secretary of East Pakistan Islami Chhatra Sangha, had provoked and instigated the then Pakistani occupation force and its collaborators -- Razakar, Al Badr, Al shams and other organisations -- in killing pro-liberation people by delivering speeches in different places of Rangpur, Bogra, Comilla and Faridpur in 1971, according to the prosecutor.
Badal said Mojaheed, the then commander of Al Badr, was also involved in the killing of intellectuals on December 14, 1971, two days before Bangladesh won its independence.
He said Mojaheed and Nizami, then president of East Pakistan Islami Chhatra Sangha, were involved in conspiring with the occupation army in committing atrocities and crimes against humanity.
The International Crimes Tribunal has so far received the formal charges against former Jamaat-e Islami ameer Ghulam Azam, its present Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami, Nayeb-e Ameer Delawar Hossain Sayedee, and Assistant Secretaries General Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Mollah and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury in connection with their alleged crimes against humanity.