The International Crimes Tribunal-1 is set to deliver today the verdict in the crimes against humanity case against Salauddin Quader Chowdhury .The two tribunals dealing with the crimes against humanity cases have so far delivered verdicts in six cases since the establishment of the first tribunal in March 2010 and the second in March 2012. He is BNP standing committee member in present.The defence counsel on the other hand claimed that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges and hoped Salauddin would be acquitted.If convicted, Salauddin might have to walk the gallows.
The Tribunal-1 awarded the former Jamaat ameer Ghulam Azam 90 years’ imprisonment and its Nayeb-e-Ameer Delawar Hossain Sayedee the capital punishment.
The Tribunal-2 sentenced expelled Jamaat member Abul Kalam Azad and its General Secretary Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and Assistant Secretary General Muhammad Kamaruzzaman to death penalty, while its another Assistant Secretary General Abdul Quader Mollah life term.
The Appellate Division of Supreme Court last month extended Quader Mollah’s punishment and awarded him capital punishment.
Law enforcers arrested Salauddin on December 16, 2010 at Banani in the capital in connection with torching a car in Moghbazar area on June 26. On December 19, he was shown arrested following a warrant issued by the tribunal.
Salauddin is facing 23 charges including genocide, abduction, confinement, torture, looting and setting fire to houses during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971.Forty-seven days after the completion of the case proceedings, tribunal Chairman Justice ATM Fazle Kabir yesterday Monday announced the date of the judgment delivery.On August 14, the tribunal kept the case waiting for verdict.After the pronouncement of the date, the prosecution said they had been able to prove 17 of the charges beyond reasonable doubt.Although BNP’s ally Jamaat-e-Islami had observed hartal on previous verdict days, the main opposition BNP could not decide whether to go for similar programme for present opposition lawmaker, Salauddin till the last night.Wising anonymity, several BNP leaders said the party members were not comfortable on the issue and no meeting had been held in the last two or three months in this regard.
SQ Chy verdict today However, the party’s standing committee member Moudud Ahmed said BNP would give its reaction after the verdict.
The prosecution pressed 24 specific charges against Salauddin on November 14, 2011. On November 17, 2011 the tribunal took the charges into cognisance.
Salauddin was finally indicted on 23 charges on April 4, 2012.
According to the formal charges, as a member and leader of Convention Muslim League, a pro-Pakistan political party, and also as an individual, and member of a group of individuals, Salauddin had committed crimes against humanity, genocide and other crimes in different places of Chittagong district during the Liberation War.
The prosecution produced 41 witnesses, including an “eyewitness” who claimed to have seen Salauddin shoot and kill Nutan Chandra Sinha, founder of herbal medicine brand Kundeshwari Oushadhalaya, in 1971.
The defence was able to bring four witnesses, including Salauddin and his cousin, to prove their client innocent and that he was not in the country during the war.
Both the sides placed closing arguments between July 28 and August 14 of this year.
The charges against Salauddin say he was involved in killing more than 200 people, including Nutan Chandra Sinha.
Nutan was one of among 111 people killed on April 13, 1971 by Salauddin, his accomplices and the Pakistani soldiers. Nutan was killed around 9:30am but the killing that day actually started around 6:00am and went on until 5:00pm in five places.
The people killed that day were mostly Hindus of Raojan’s Moddhya Gohira Hindu Para, Jogot Mollo Para, Unsattur Para and Sultanpur village.
Many were also injured that day and their houses were looted and torched, read the charges.
Pro-liberation people including a large number of Hindus were also forced to leave the country due to the atrocities committed by Salauddin and his accomplices, the charges say.
They are still haunted by memories of the atrocities the Pakistani army committed with the help of Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury during the Liberation War in 1971.
As the news spread in Raozan yesterday morning that a special tribunal would deliver verdict in the war crimes case against Salahuddin, anxiety again gripped the victim families and those who testified against him. Even forty-two years after independence, Hindu families in Jagatmallapara and Kundeshwary villages of Gahira and Unasatturpara of Pahartali union still fear a backlash from the war crimes accused.
On April 13, 1971, Pakistani soldiers aided by local collaborators killed 32 Hindus, including seven of a family, at Jagatmallapara and 79 Hindus at Unosatturpara, witnesses told war crimes investigators.
They also killed noted philanthropist Natun Chandra Singha, founder of the herbal medicine factory Kundeshwari Oushadhalaya, at his home.
It was alleged that Salahuddin along with his band of Razakars led the Pakistan army to Kundeshwari and other two areas. He himself killed Natun Chandra.
Amid a sense of insecurity, locals were unwilling to say anything about the war crimes trial against him, today’s verdict or the April 13 mass killing.
Though the law enforcers claimed to have tightened security ahead of the verdict, locals allege that police visited the areas only once yesterday morning.
Merry Chowdhury, wife of Asish Chowdhury who deposed against Salahuddin Quader before the tribunal, kept his silence when this correspondent wanted to know of her reaction.
Asish, who lost his father and brother on the black day in 1971, was contacted at his workplace Kundeshwari Oushadhalaya. He too refused to talk.
Merry’s neighbour Sreepal Sarkar said the villagers had started feeling insecure as news about the imminent verdict came in the morning.
However, Prafulla Ranjan Singha, son of Martyar Natun Chandra Singha , expressed his satisfaction over the trial undertaken after so many years.Officer-in-Charge Enamul Hoque of Raozan Police Station said law enforcers were on patrol in the upazila.
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