Martyred Intellectuals Day today
Courtesy New Age 14/12/10
No complete list of martyred intellectuals yet
Shahiduzzaman
The nation observes Martyred Intellectuals Day today while no comprehensive list of the intellectuals slain by the Pakistani occupation forces and their local collaborators has yet been prepared and no official enquiry into the killings has been done. 
The killers have not yet been put on trial and no official enquiry has been made into the nature and extent of the selective murders of the nation's finest minds in December 1971.
The report of Buddhijibi Nidhan Tathyanusandhan Committee, formed by a group of leading civil society actors to probe the killings, has also never come to light.
Sensing defeat, the Pakistan occupation forces and their local collaborators — Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams — abducted leading Bengali intellectuals and professionals and killed them to cripple the nation intellectually.
Academics, writers, physicians, engineers, journalists and other eminent personalities were among the people dragged blindfolded out of their houses in Dhaka and massacred at Rayer Bazar and in other killing fields in the city.
The first prime minister of Bangladesh, Tajuddin Ahmed, declared December 14 Martyred Intellectuals' Day as the largest number of abduction and subsequent murder of the intellectuals took place on December 14, 1971, two days before the surrender of the Pakistani occupation forces.
A comprehensive list of the martyred intellectuals is, however, yet to be prepared.
A spokesperson for the Mujibnagar government in a statement on December 20, 1971 said the Pakistani occupation forces and their local collaborators had killed 360 intellectuals before they surrendered on December 16, 1971.
Shaheed Buddhijibi Koshgrantha, a biographical encyclopaedia of martyred intellectuals published by the Bangla Academy and reprinted in 1994, put the number at 232 but said the list was neither complete nor comprehensive.
`Bangladesh', a documentary publication of the government in 1972, said the Pakistani occupation forces and the local killing squads unleashed by them had killed 637 primary and 270 secondary schoolteachers and 59 college teachers during the war of independence.
The martyred intellectuals, whose bodies could be identified, include Munier Chowdhury, Dr Alim Chowdhury, Muniruzzaman, Dr Fazle Rabbi, Sirajuddin Hossain, Shahidullah Kaiser, Zahir Raihan, Govinda Chandra Dev, Jyotirmay Guha Thakurta, Santosh Bhattacharya, Mofazzal Haider Chowdhury, Khandaker Abu Taleb, Nizamuddin Ahmed, SA Mannan (Ladu Bhai), ANM Golam Mustafa, Syed Nazmul Haq and Selina Parvin.
Some of the bodies were decomposed beyond recognition when the mass graves could be located.
No official inquiry into the nature, dimension and extent of the selective killings of intellectuals has been done so far.
The Buddhijibi Nidhan Tathyanusandhan Committee was formed at a meeting at the then Dhaka Press Club on December 18, 1971, immediately after the discovery of a mass grave of martyred intellectuals at Rayer Bazar in the capital.
The late filmmaker and writer Zahir Raihan was made convener of the seven-member committee.
The late journalist Enayetullah Khan of the weekly Holiday was made the co-convener. The other members were the late Ehtesham Haider Chowdhury, brother of Professor Mofazzal Haidar Chowdhury, a victim of the selective killings, M Amirul Islam, a senior lawyer of the Supreme Court, former law minister Moudud Ahmed, the late journalist Ali Ashraf and Professor Serajul Islam Chowdhury.
The committee started recording depositions on December 20, 1971 and worked on the lists and other documents recovered during the raids on the killers' camps at Dhanmondi, Motijheel and elsewhere in the capital.
The lists contained the names of 20,000 of the finest minds of the nation, according to the members of the committee.
It recommended that the government should set up a commission comprising freedom fighters, members of the allied force, government officials and private citizens.
The committee also suggested that the commission should be empowered to take whatever action necessary to arrest the killers, investigate the murders and find out the intellectuals who remained untraced.
Before submitting the report to the government of the time, Zahir Raihan put forward the committee's recommendations at a press briefing at the Dhaka Press Club on December 29, 1971. The report has remained beyond the public domain ever since.
The cabinet of the then prime minister, the late Tajuddin Ahmed, decided on December 31, 1971 to form a commission, to be headed by a sitting High Court judge, for inquiry into the nature, dimension and extent of the genocide. The decision had never been implemented.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, meanwhile, returned to Bangladesh from imprisonment in Pakistan on January 10, 1972 and announced that the war criminals, including the occupation forces and their collaborators, would be tried.
On March 17, Mujib told a delegation of the families of the martyred intellectuals at Ganabhaban that an inquiry of the killings had been ordered.
The government had formed a committee comprising Supreme Court lawyer Sirajul Haq and attorney general Aminul Huq to investigate the genocide. The committee compiled evidence painstakingly and submitted a report on 1,500 cases to the home ministry in July 1972.
The report listed the war criminals in two categories: 195 members of the Pakistani army and bureaucracy, who had been taken into Indian custody in New Delhi and were subsequently handed over to Pakistan in 1974 following the Simla Agreement; and about 12,000 of their local collaborators, including members of Razakar, Al-Badr, Al-Shams and the peace committees.
This report was not followed up either.
The killers of the martyred intellectuals have not been tried yet although the requisite law was enacted, special tribunals were formed and special prosecutors were appointed.
After the promulgation of the Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order 1972, widely known as the collaborators order, on January 24, 1972, the government of Sheikh Mujib set up 73 special tribunals, including 11 in Dhaka, to hold trial of Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams forces, defined as collaborators in the order.
The families of many martyred intellectuals filed cases under the order. As of March 28, 1972, a total of 42 cases were filed, according to an announcement of the police at the time. The number kept rising till November 1973.
No specific information on the fate of the cases could be found as the old files and police records were untraceable. Officials of the home ministry, Criminal Investigation Department, Ramna police, district and sessions judge's court, chief metropolitan magistrate's court and the deputy commissioner's office fear the files and the records may have gone missing.
Information gathered from the families of the martyred intellectuals, the lawyers of the cases and the newspapers of the days suggest that only six cases have so far been disposed of and five persons were convicted.
The trials started in June 1972 in a special tribunal with the case of Abul Kalam Azad, a slain professor at the Institute of Advanced Science and Technology Teaching. The charge sheet in the case was submitted on June 13, 1972.
The verdict the tribunal delivered first, on July 1, 1972, concerned the abduction and murder case of Shahidulla Kaiser. Abdul Khaleq of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison as he was convicted on the charge of abduction only.
The verdict in the Azad murder case came on October 5, 1972 with the tribunal sentencing Maqbul, Ayub Ali and Zubayer of Al-Badr to death for the abduction and murder of the academic. The High Court later acquitted Maqbul and Zubayer and sentenced Ayub to imprisonment for three years for abduction only.
The tribunal also convicted Al-Badr member Khalil for abducting and killing journalist Sirajuddin Hossain and sentenced him to life-term imprisonment.
In two more cases, however, governor Abdul Malek and his cabinet colleague Jasimuddin Ahmed were sentenced to life-term imprisonment for their involvement in the conspiracy and execution of the selective killings of the intellectuals.
Shyamali Nasreen Chowdhury, wife of the slain Dr Abdul Alim Chowdhury, also filed a case against Maulana Mannan, later a minister in HM Ershad's cabinet. The case was dismissed and Shyamali Nasreen said she could never come to know of the reason.
The process of trial was impeded by a general amnesty for the collaborators, declared by the then prime minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, on November 30, 1973.
Under the general amnesty, about 26,000 out of the 35,000 people held or convicted under the collaborators act were released. While the amnesty did not apply to those charged with murder, rape or arson, most of the collaborators, especially the bigwigs charged with abduction and other general collaboration, were released.
After the general amnesty, no case was filed under the collaborators order and the order was finally revoked on December 31, 1975, burying the process of the trial of the collaborators.
On the eve of Martyred Intellectuals Day, the president, Zillur Rahman, prime minister Sheikh Hasina and leader of the opposition Khaleda Zia issued messages paying tributes to the martyred intellectuals and recalling their contribution.
Leaders of other political parties and different socio-cultural organisations also issued messages and paid tributes to the martyred intellectuals, recalled their contributions and demanded probe and trial of the killings.
Newspapers carry special supplements while radio and television channels will air special programmes to commemorate the martyrs. The day's programmes begin with the hoisting of the national flag at half-mast and black flags atop public and private buildings in the morning.
Alongside the official programmes, different political and socio-cultural organisations will observe the day in a befitting manner.
The programmes include placing wreaths at the Rayer Bazar Martyred Intellectuals' Graveyard and Martyred Intellectuals' Memorial at Mirpur, discussion meetings, forming human chain and different cultural programmes.
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