Rights activist Sultana Kamal on Thursday compared Jamaat’s former amir Ghulam Azam’s role during the War of Independence in 1971 with that of infamous dictator Adolf Hitler in Germany before and during the Second World War.
Sultana made the above statement in the International Crimes Tribunal-1 during cross-examination by defence counsel Mizanul Islam.
Although Ghulam Azam was not the chief of any one of the auxiliary forces of the Pakistani occupation army in 1971, he had played a vital role in forming peace committees which had assisted the Pakistani army to commit crimes against humanity in nine months during the War of Liberation, said Sultana in response to a query from the defence.
She also said that Ghulam Azam’s close aide, Motiur Rahman Nizami, was Al Badr’s chief in 1971.
Referring Ghulam Azam’s role, Sultana said that Hitler was not the chief of Germany’s Nazi Party but he was the principal accused in the genocide committed by the Nazis in which about six million Jews were killed during the Second World War.
‘Though Ghulam Azam was not the institutional head of any of the auxiliary forces — Razakar, Al Badr, Al Shams and Shanti Committee — the forces were subject to his guidance and directives,’ said Sultana.
‘As Hitler had done in the Second World War, I think Ghulam Azam did the same during our liberation war,’ she said.
The defence accused Sultana of distorting the history of Bangladesh’s liberation war, saying that the more the historians wrote on Bangladesh’s liberation war, the more they compared Pakistani dictators Yahya Khan and Tikka Khan with Hitler, but not Ghulam Azam.
In her reply, Sultana said, ‘From today, I add Ghulam Azam’s name to Yahya and Tikka.’
She said that the defence’s suggestion that Ghulam Azam played no role in committing crimes against humanity during the War of Liberation was not true.
She also denied the defence’s suggestion that Ghulam Azam’s role was political because he believed in keeping Pakistan united.
Sultana, also a former adviser to a caretaker government, said that the defence’s suggestion that she had given false deposition against Ghulam Azam, being politically motivated, was also not true.
She admitted that her name was sent to the Bangabhaban in 2007 for being selected as an adviser to the President Iajuddin Ahmed-led caretaker government at the recommendation of Awami League’s president Sheikh Hasina, now the prime minister.
Sultana also said that it was true that she had mentioned this in her autobiographical book Atta Katha Nilimar Niche.
The tribunal of Justice Md Nizamul Haq, Jahangir Hossain and Justice Mohammad Anwarul Haque is scheduled on Sunday to record the deposition of the fourth prosecution witness in Ghulam Azam’s case as Sultana’s deposition and cross-examination was completed.
Courtesy of New Age
