Quasem led Al-Badr to kidnap 25

Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali led a group of Al-Badr men while capturing 20/25 people in Sabanghata area of Chittagong city during the Liberation War in 1971, an eyewitness said.
Mohammad Hasan, who was picked up by the militia force in the early hours of November 30, 1971, told the International Crimes Tribunal-2 that several other people from two other places were also detained at the same time.
Hasan, the 12th prosecution witness in Quasem's case, said he and two other people got released hours after their detention.
But the remaining detainees were taken to Dalim Hotel, the Al-Badr headquarters in Chittagong, and were held captive under Quasem's leadership, said the 62-year-old witness.
Earlier in the day, Nazim Uddin, the 11th prosecution witness in the case and also a captive of the camp, said he had learnt from other detainees that Dalim Hotel was a Quasem-controlled torture centre.
Quasem, a member of Jamaat's central executive committee, is facing 14 charges for his alleged involvement in crimes against humanity committed in Chittagong during the nine-month-long war.
The tribunal yesterday ordered a junior counsel of Quasem to go out of the courtroom for "side-talking" during the proceedings. The lawyer complied with the order.
During his 28-minute testimony, Hasan of Sabanghata said he was a class IX student in 1971 and went into hiding after the war began. He returned home in August.
Around 3:00am on November 30, Al-Badr men surrounded their house and detained 20/25 people including him and his father under the leadership of Quasem and took them to NMC High School, he said.
"Then, Mir Quasem Ali left the place keeping us under the surveillance of Al-Badr men," he said.
"Mir Quasem Ali was familiar to me since 1970, when he was studying in Chittagong College. He [Quasem] was the president of Islami Chhatra Sangha [the then student wing of Jamaat] of Chittagong College unit," said Hasan.
At sunrise, Al-Badr men brought two other groups of people (to the school) and put all the detainees on two trucks, he said, adding: "My father Abdus Sattar, Moulana Nurul Islam and I had been released."
Hasan said the detainees got released after liberation and it had been learnt from them that they had been kept detained inside Dalim Hotel under Quasem's leadership.
"I have seen torture marks on their [detainees'] bodies," said Hasan, who identified Quasem in the dock.
Before Hasan's testimony, the 57-year-old Nazim Uddin, of Golamali Najirbari area in Chittagong, said Al-Badr men picked him up and his cousins -- Chutu Mia, Zakaria, Iskandar -- and several others around 4:00am on November 30.
They were first brought to NMC High School and later taken to Dalim Hotel by trucks, he said. Zakaria and Iskandar also testified in the case.
Nazim said he was kept confined in a room of the hotel and after an hour or two, Al-Badr men took some detainees away from the room and brought them back after two hours.
"I saw torture marks on their [detainees'] bodies. 'I will be tortured too,' the injured told me," Nazim said, adding: "They [the injured] also told me that it [hotel] was a torture centre controlled by Mir Quasem Ali."
He also said after three or four days, Al-Badr men produced him before Quasem who inquired about the whereabouts of freedom fighters. But he couldn't reveal any information.
"Then Mir Quasem Ali said: 'You are getting released due to lobbying by your father. However, you will inform me whenever you get any information about freedom fighters," said Nazim.
After their testimonies, Quasem's counsel Mizanul Islam completed cross-examining them before the two-member tribunal led by Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah with Justice Md Shahinur Islam adjourned the case proceeding until March 3.