Bangladesh's Nuremberg type war crimes trials have finally brought closure for the families of hundreds of victims, as two war criminals Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury were hanged in Dhaka recently.
The hanging took place after a long legal process in which the "unusual crimes" committed by the accused was in focus, as both of the accused were charged with subjecting the people of Bangladesh to unbelievable terror and genocide.
An estimated three million innocent Bangladeshis were killed at the hands of war criminals, who were pushing the agenda of Pakistan and its war machine, which went about abusing the human rights of the entire population of what was then known as East Pakistan. The fact is that the number of dead in Bangladesh in 1971 was almost certainly well into seven figures.
Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, raised the gang Al-Badr to exterminate the intelligentsia of the country. He was the son of Maulana Abdul Ali, a member of Provincial Assembly of then East Pakistan during 1962-64, and was born in Faridpur in 1948.
After completing his schooling, Mojaheed joined Dhaka University in 1970 and later went to Sydney University in Australia for higher studies.
Politically, he was active from 1968 to the time of his arrest in 2011. In August and September, 1970, Mojaheed became the Secretary of the East Pakistan Islami Chhatra Sangha, and in October 1971, he was elected the president of the East Pakistan Islami Chhatra Sangha. He was one of the founders of AI-Badr & Al-Shams Bahini in 1971.
Mojaheed went into hiding after the war ended and Bangladesh was created, but later surrendered. He was jailed for almost two years and was released on general amnesty in 1974.He was one of the key figures in inception of the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1979 and was General Secretary of its Dhaka unit from 1979 to 1983, President from 1983 to 1988, Assistant Secretary General of JeI from 1988 to 1998 and Secretary General of the party from November 1998 till his hanging this year.
More From This Section
He contested the 1991 and 1996 general elections but lost. He won in the October 2001 election, and was inducted into the Bangladesh Cabinet as Minister of Social Welfare from 2001to 2007.
On December 11, 2011, the prosecution submitted before the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) 34 counts of charges against Mojaheed and his trial began on July 19, 2012.
The ICT delivered its verdict on war crimes charges on July 17, 2013 and sentenced him to death on two of the seven charges brought against him. He filed an appeal with the Appellate Division of Supreme Court on August 11, 2013 which was upheld on June 16, 2015. He filed a review petition in Supreme Court challenging the verdict of Appellate division on October 14, 2015, which was rejected on November 18, 2015. Thereafter, he was hanged.
Salauddin Quader Chowdhury led his gang along with the Pakistani forces into Hindu populated villages in then East Pakistan and killed at will. Commonly and popularly known as Saka Chow, he was the son of Fazlul Quader (Foka) Chowdhury, and hailed from village Gohira in Chittagong District.
Also a member of the parliament, Chowdhury, studied at the prestigious Faujdarhat Cadet College in Chittagong and at the Air Force College, Lahore. He did his post-graduation from the Marine Engineering College in London.During his stint at the Air Force College; he came in contact with now Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He had wide ranging business interests in shipping, spinning mills, port handling, and real estate.
Politically, he was the advisor for parliamentary affairs to former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. He was a controversial and criminally notorious character and known for shifting allegiance to political ideologies. He ruthlessly suppressed any kind of opposition to him when it came to contesting parliamentary elections.
During the Liberation War, Saka Chow led an extensive campaign against the freedom of the country and lent all out support to the Pakistan occupation army. All of his heinous activities were concentrated in Chittagong District, and he was guided and helped by his father Foka Chowdhury and Brother Giasuddin Quader Chowdhury, besides many other like-minded anti-liberation people.
Before the war ended in the second week of December 1971, Salahuddin fled the country, and he only returned after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975. Chowdhury joined active politics in 1977 by reviving Muslim League and was elected as MP in 1979. He served as a member of the parliament for seven terms, in 1979, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2008.
Prior to his hanging earlier this week, he had been in prison without bail since December 16, 2010 for masterminding and financing arson during anti-government agitation. Later, his imprisonment was switched to alleged acts of war crimes, following a warrant issued by the International Crimes Tribunal to begin trial for his involvements in the 1971 Bangladesh genocide.
On October 1, 2013, the ICT sentenced Chowdhury to death by hanging on nine out of the 23 charges brought against him.
An appeal case was filed on October 29, 2013 and rejected by the judiciary at all levels over a period of over two years.
The final nail in the coffin came when the Supreme Court rejected his review petition on November 18, 2015.
Mojaheed, 67, was the third Jamaat leader to have died for war crimes after Abdul Quader Mollah in December 2013 and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman in April this year. Salauddin, 66, was the first BNP leader to have walked to the gallows for war atrocities.