Friday, October 25, 2013
The Daily Times, Pakistan
My view sent to Star, as expected, has not found any space by paper yet. The vicious campaign in BD against Pakistani troop’s atrocities and their “collaborators” is in full swing.
I foresee great amount of tongue lashing against all these elements, by the political leaders in the upcoming election campaign, which starts from October 25. Our foreign mission in BD and Foreign Ministry in Islamabad is on the back foot whenever hype is created on each verdict of the tribunal.
For the past 42 years, governments in office in BD start Pakistan bashing which has become a ritual on every February 21 (Language Day), March 17 (Sheikh Mujib’s birthday), March 25 (as Pakistan troops crack down), March 26 (BD’s Independence Day), August 15 (Sh Mujib’s assassination, as National Mourning Day) and December 16 (fall of Dhaka/surrender of Pak Army is celebrated as Victory Day), to mention a few.
There are millions of Pakistan supporters in BD, especially in the BNP and others independent-minded citizens, someone has to make a point for these people to see the other side of the coin.
I am at a great disadvantage for putting pen to paper, being a Pakistani and a family friend of MP Salauddin Quader Chowdhury (SQC). I respect the point of view of Awami League and their supporters in the media being Bangladesh’s honoured citizens, but at the same time pray they give their consideration to what I have to place before them.
At the outset I must admit that a great wrong had been done by many Pakistan rulers to its own people in all the five provinces plus the other regions (FATA, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir) from the very inception of the creation of Pakistan, some regions suffered more than the other.
The rulers being the politicians and civil and military bureaucracy, who changed hands from time to time. Bangladesh and Balochistan saw military action and loss of life and abuse of human rights with varying degrees at the hands of military ruler and a civilian democratic dispensation, respectively.
In both instances army was used to suppress its’ own people. It was a very shameful and condemnable act in our history, defying all norms of decent human behaviour – least of all by the followers of the tenets of Islam.
The question is whether these were the acts of individuals or did it carry the mandates of the people to inflict harm, misery and sufferings on the weak by the mighty state power? The fair answer would be that it did not carry the sanction of the people. In case of Bangladesh the majority of all the regions then in West Pakistan cannot be bracketed as one half against the other half, East Pakistan. In case of Balochistan all the majority in the truncated Pakistan’s seven regions cannot be blamed for letting loose the armed forces on the Baloch people.
My second question would be; after the independence of Bangladesh, how has its’ own governments (civil and military) ruled its population.
Have they been fair, have they imparted justice and brought equality in distribution of state wealth and services and above all have they ruled or served the needy millions? The same question is equally applicable to truncated Pakistan who has seen 11 governments since 1971.
Rulers have acted exactly in the same manner irrespective of whichever regions they belonged to. The population under the various rulers has also behaved and agitated as they did when they were misruled by their own ilk or rulers from far away lands.
My last question to citizens of BD, would they be contend to hang 10 individuals as war criminals and would that bring solace to the bereaved millions (according to their assessment). Would it not be in accordance to the high moral grounds which they and many in the Awami League hierarchy are craving to establish that before the tribunal awards the death penalty the “criminals “ at least be given a fair trial?
SQC faced 23 charges including genocide, arson, rape and murder with the support of the Pakistan Army. The state produced 41 witnesses for the prosecution but when it came to the defence they were restricted to only five. Even one witness to defy each grievous charge would have permitted 23 witnesses!
When four most credible witnesses were to be brought from Pakistan to provide alibi for SQC being in Karachi and Lahore showing his presence in the Punjab University for periods shown in the charge sheet (April to September 2, 1971) the tribunal refused to issue summons for the Pakistanis.
In the absence of the summons, no visas could be issued by the BD High Commission in Islamabad. It would have been a great chance for the prosecution to cross-examine the witnesses from Pakistan and shred their “concocted” statements/affidavits to pieces.
The tribunal’s image would have been greatly enhanced in the eyes of its own people. The prosecution here too, mislead the judges as it did through out the trial. One defence witness was a sitting judge of the Dhaka High Court, Justice Shamim Hasnain, who was a classmate of SQC in the Punjab University during the period when the crimes are purported to have been committed.
Justice Shamim wrote a letter to his chief justice on July 22, 2013, stating that he and SQC were in the same class in Lahore and it was his moral duty to go and depose these facts before the tribunal and he may be permitted to appear as a witness. He did not get the assent of the CJ of the high court. It is also conveniently forgotten that SQC has a large family but none other have been charged by the government for genocide as if all responsibility fell upon the eldest son of AKM Fazlul Quader Chowdhury, former speaker of the National Assembly of united Pakistan, to suppress the Freedom Movement in BD!
All this is in realisation to the fact that SQC is a six-time member of parliament from Chittagong – a port city of BD, and a staunch political opponent of PM Hasina Wajid and it is she who has suddenly realised about the genocide in her second stint in office.
Her late father Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, who created BD, never ever thought of tribunals to punish crimes committed during the war of “liberation”. The founding fathers had a vision to establish a country for which a huge sacrifice had been laid. They moved on to reach their goals. While the AL of present times has lost itself into polarising society even further rather than uniting them after a lapse of 42 years.
Central Vice President of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2013%5C10%5C25%5Cstory_25-10-2013_pg7_16
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