WAR CRIMES TRIAL
SQC says he flew to Karachi in March 1971
The detained Bangladesh Nationalist Party lawmaker Salauddin Quader Chowdhury on Monday told the International Crimes Tribunal 1 that he
had flown from Dhaka to Karachi on March 29, 1971.
In his deposition for the eighth day as the first prosecution witness for himself, Salauddin, who is facing charges on 23 counts of crimes against humanity committed in Chittagong
area in 1971, said that his cousin Qayyum Reza Chowdhury had taken him to Tejgaon airport in Dhaka on March 29, 1971 and his school friend Muneeb Arjuman Khan received him at Karachi airport.
He said that every individual in Bangladesh between March 25 and December 16 in 1971 found their own innovative ways and means to survive and protect themselves and the lives of their near and dear ones.
He said that he stayed in Karachi for three weeks and socialised with Muneeb and Mohammad Mian Soomro, who served as caretaker prime minister of Pakistan during 2008 elections, and both the two sent him their signed affidavits and expressed their intentions to made deposition before the tribunal as defence witnesses.
He also named Riaz Noon, Naeem Akhoond, Mohammed Mian Soomro claiming that they were amongst his friends in Lahore in 1971 and they sent him their affidavits on recollections of his stay in Lahore in 1971.
He added that those Pakistanis could not come to Bangladesh as they were denied visas by Bangladesh high commission in Islamabad.
He said that Herald Group of Publications chairperson Mrs Amber Haroon Saigol was also unable to obtain a visa for making deposition for him in the tribunal.
The BNP standing committee member said that he had also socialised with his friends from Dhaka — Salman F Rahman, Nizam Ahmed, Qayyum Reza Chowdhury, Arif Jiwani, Osman Siddiqui and Rezaur Rahman — all of whom had taken shelter in Karachi in April 1971.
He said that he reached Lahore at the end of the third week of April 1971 and was received there by his friends Khakwani at his house Al-Azam on Wahadat Colony Road.
Salauddin said that he studied at political science at the new campus of Punjab University for completing his final year honours.
He said that he met his friend Shamim Hasnain, now a Supreme Court judge, who enrolled to the university in May 1971.
Salauddin said that he was restricted to Lahore in the June, July and August 1971 as his final examinations were in August.
He said that he, along with some of his friends went to Murree after his examinations in August, 1971 and spent three weeks there.
The BNP lawmaker said that his father went to Lahore possibly on October 8, 1971, stayed at Ambassador Hotel where he bade him farewell probably on October 10, 1971. ‘That was the last time I saw my father.’
He said that he and two of his friends crossed Pakistani frontier on October 12, 1971, drove through Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Holland and France and reached London in the second Week of November 1971.
He said that he remained in the UK till April, 1974.
As Salauddin began to make a statement on the depositions made by prosecution witnesses on the charge for killing Nutan Chandra Singha, the prosecution said that such arguments could only be made by defence counsel, not by a witness.
Salauddin then sought the direction and guidance from of both the tribunal and the prosecution about his way of deposition as he wanted to defend him against all the charges.
The tribunal said that he had already claimed that he was not in Bangladesh when the crimes were committed and that he was tried for political reasons.
‘You should say all the 23 charges against you were false, you were not in the country and the case against you was politically motivated,’ prosecutor Zead-Al-Malum suggested Salauddin.
‘Fine, I will do,’ Salauddin said, seeking an adjournment for the day as he was not feeling well but assured that he would complete his deposition in one hour on the next date.
The tribunal adjourned the hearing till today.
-With New Age input
