Officials of state-run Radio Bangladesh have said a number of politically crucial tapes, many containing evidence of crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War, have been destroyed or have disappeared after the August 15, 1975 killing of Bangladesh�s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
"Many of the Liberation War documents which contained the statements of the top collaborators and leaders of perpetrators of 1971 crimes against humanity disappeared after August 15, 1975," director general of Bangladesh Betar AKM Shamim Chowdhury told newsmen in Dhaka yesterday.
Chowdhury said he believed many of the destroyed tapes could be used as evidence as a trial on 1971 war crimes was underway at the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT).
The station was then known as Radio Pakistan. It was used as a "propaganda machine" as it broadcast the statements of Pakistani junta�s and that of several top collaborators like Ghulam Azam and other who spearheaded a campaign of hate against those who sought freedom.
A senior radio official said some recorded tapes on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the Liberation War, however, were found from an abandoned file cabinet in.
"Radio Bangladesh is now using them," he said.
Radio Bangladesh�s deputy director Akhtar Jahan Dolon said a senior official of the radio took away several recorded statements of Mujib and interviews of his family members apparently on orders from influential quarters. "These tapes were never found afterwards," he said.
Former regional director of Radio Bangladesh and recipient of Independence Award Ashfakur Rahman said a group of uniformed military personnel led by Mujib�s convicted killer Major Dalim had seized Mujib�s recorded statements and dumped it in a steel file cabinet, locked it and took the key away with them after August 15, 1995.
"In 1994-1995, the tapes were recovered from one of the abandoned file cabinets in a corridor on the third floor," he said.
Radio Bangladesh�s director of transcription Kamal Ahmed said his section had now collected several audio documents on Mujib and the Liberation War and digitized them.
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