The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

A sedition case was filed yesterday against two top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangla-desh and a former secretary for their alleged audacious remarks against the country's independence and liberation war.

Freedom-fighter Mohammad Fazlur Rahman of village South Ramerkanda under Keraniganj Police Station of the Dhaka district filed the case against Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, assistant secretary general Abdul Kader Molla and former secretary Shah Abdul Hannan in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) court in Dhaka yesterday for their anti-independence and anti-liberation remarks.

Appearing before the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Emran Hossain Chowdhury at about 12:30pm, freedom fighter Fazlur Rahman filed the sedition case.

The editors of the Daily Prothom Alo and the Daily Bhorer Kagoj and the news editor of the Daily Prothom Alo were made witnesses in the case.

Taking the case into cognizance, Metropolitan Magistrate Emran Hossain Chowdhury ordered the officer-in-charge of Tejgaon Police Station to investigate the complain against the accused.

The case accuses the three for making remarks against the emergence of an independent Bangladesh in 1971, and creating and ordering the Razakar, Al Badr and

Al Shams forces to kill pro-liberation civilians including intellectuals.

The plaintiff said the accused persons committed crimes of treason by killing about 30 lakh people, raping about two lakh women and other ill activities.

He said that 36 years after liberation, the accused had not yet recognised Bangladesh's victory, flag, constitution or Independence Day.

The plaintiff Fazlur Rahman said, "I could not file a case in the past due to the various adverse political situations in the country."

In his case, Fazlur Rahman alleged that after attending the electoral reform talks at the Election Commission on October 25 last Jamaat secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed told the media that Jamaat did not work against the Liberation War in 1971 and

there were presently no war criminals in Bangladesh.

The remarks of Mojaheed left people across the country stunned.

"By his audacious remarks, Mojaheed undermined the country's liberation war and the freedom fighters," he said.

On the other hand, at a discussion on the life and work of late Baitul Mokarram Khatib Obaidul Huq at the National Press Club in the city Kader Molla made defamatory remarks against the country's War of Liberation and freedom fighters claiming that some people had joined the liberation war to fight against the Pakistani army in 1971 to have beautiful women, some others for property and some to protect Indian interests," while former Islami Bank chairman Shah Abdul Hannan, while speaking on a talk show, Ekushey Shomoy, on private satellite television channel Ekushey Television described the Liberation War of 1971 as a "civil war".

He denied that genocide took place in the country at that time and that war criminals exist here.

Hannan also expressed doubts that three million people died in the war and supported a Pakistani report according to which only 26,000 people or less died during the Liberation War.

Counsel of the plaintiff Advocate Abu Mohammad Abdur Razzaque said: "War crimes and murder cases can be filed any time."

It may be recalled that several sedition cases have already been filed against Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and Kader Molla with different police stations of the country for their audacious remarks against the country's War of Independence, supreme sacrifices of 30 lakh men, women and children, and rapes committed by the Pakisatni army and their local collaborators, known as 'Razakars,' Al Badrs, and Al Shams.