A dentist on Monday testified that the detained assistant secretary general of the Jamaat, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, and his Al-Badr cohorts on 29 June, 1971 caught his younger brother, who was later tortured and killed. Md Hasanuzzaman, the sixth prosecution witness against Kamaruzzaman, made his deposition before the International Crimes Tribunal-2, popularly known as the war crimes tribunal instituted for the trial of the 1971 war crimes.
Kamaruzzaman was in the dock.
Hasanuzzaman said his brother Badiuzzaman, a freedom-fighter, was tortured brutally throughout the night on 29 June, 1971 and killed the following morning.
He said he had filed a case against 11 persons including Kamaruzzaman, who was a leader of the Al-Badr in Sherpur, after the independence of the country for killing his brother.
Hasanuzzaman said that his brother, who was a Pakistan Navy personnel, came to their village home at Kalinagar under Nalitabari in Sherpur from his workplace in Karachi in February 1971 on leave, and took part in the War of Independence after being inspired by Sheik Mujibur Rahman’s speech on 7 March, 1971.
Then a first-year student of Dhaka Dental College, Hasanuzzaman said his brother on 29 June, 1971 afternoon went to Hasanuzzaman’s father-in-law’s house in Ramnagar village to recce the Ahmednagar camp of the occupation Pakistani army.
At around 11:00pm of the day, a gang of armed persons went to his father-in-law’s house, identified themselves as freedom-fighters and wanted food, said Hasanuzzaman.
Badiuzzaman happily came out of his room and began talking to them, he said.
The witness said that his wife’s uncle Makbul Hossain gave them puffed rice.
Hasanuzzaman said the inmates of the house could identify the strangers as Al-Badr leader Kamaruzzaman and his Al-Badr cohorts after his brother-in-law Jamshed Ali brought a lantern.
He said that his wife’s uncles tried to free Badiuzzaman from Kamaruzzaman’s clutch but Badiuzzaman could not understand the situation.
Kamaruzzaman then asked Badiuzzaman to take them to the Ahmednagar army camp and they then started walking for the army camp.
‘The Al-Badr men forcibly took my brother to the army camp where he was brutally tortured and was taken to Jhinaigati-Sherpur road the following morning and shot to death,’ said the witness.
He said that the body of his brother was dragged to a nearby pool into which the Pakistani soldiers threw it.
The farm labourers who were working in the field by the side of the road saw the killing and found marks of torture on the whole body, and one of his ears was cut off.
Hasanuzzaman said that after independence he went to his father-in-law’s house and heard details of the incident from Makbul, Syedur, Jamshed and the farm workers there.
Prior to the deposition, he informed the tribunal that he had been getting threats over phone.
After the deposition, defence counsel Mohammad Kafil Uddin Chowdhury began questioning him but the cross-examination remained incomplete because the tribunal adjourned the proceedings until Wednesday.
Earlier the defence counsel completed the cross-examination of Md Mosharraf Hossain Talukdar, the fifth prosecution witness against Kamaruzzaman.
The tribunal also began recording the statement of Md Saidur Rahman, the second prosecution witness against former BNP lawmaker and minister Abdul Alim, at around 4:10pm but the deposition remained incomplete when the tribunal adjourned the proceedings of the case till Tuesday morning.
Courtesy of New Age
