DHAKA: Bangladesh has barred war crimes suspects in the nation’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan from leaving the country ahead of a planned trial, a government minister said yesterday. Law Minister Shafique Ahmed said the government is preparing to try those accused of collaborating with Pakistani troops and helping them in killings, rape, arson and looting during the bloody nine-month war.
He said the immigration authorities have been given a list of the suspects to stop them from traveling overseas.
He refused to say who or how many people were on the list.
“What I can tell you is that those who have committed crimes against humanity during the 1971 war must be put on trial,” Ahmed said. “The process of starting the trial has already begun.”
Bangladesh began the process of holding war crimes trials in 1973, but it ground to a halt in 1975 when the nation’s independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in a military coup. Most subsequent governments had suspected war criminals as their allies.
Ahmed said the long-delayed trial could be held under the International Crime Tribunal Act that Bangladesh enacted in 1973, two years after the Muslim-majority South Asian nation became an independent nation. He did not provide further details.
His comments came less than a week before Bangladesh celebrates its 38th independence anniversary on March 26 amid calls from war heroes and families of those slain for justice.
Bangladesh’s Parliament passed a resolution in January urging Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s newly elected government to hold war crimes trials.
Bangladesh claims Pakistani troops killed 3 million people and raped 200,000 women during the war.
Hasina’s government has accused its rival, Jamaat-e-Islami, of collaborating with the Pakistani soldiers.
Jamaat-e-Islami says it backed Pakistan on “ideological grounds,” but denies any role in the killings or rape.
4 ‘mutineers’ dead
Four members of Bangladesh’s border security force being held for questioning over a mutiny at a military base have died in custody in the past month, a police officer said.
The officer, who declined to be named, told AFP that the dead men were among those picked up by police in connection with the revolt last month at the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) headquarters on Feb. 25-26. “The body of one guard was found hanging and we suspect he committed suicide. Three others, including a Muslim cleric who is part of the BDR, are believed to have died of heart attacks,” the officer said.
“We are conducting post-mortems of the bodies to ascertain the causes of their deaths.”
