Witness places SQ Chy at crime scene

A prosecution witness on Tuesday placed BNP MP Salauddin Quader Chowdhury at the scene of massacre during the Liberation War in 1971.

Retired businessman Anil Baran Dhar told the first war crimes tribunal of Bangladesh that Chowdhury had accompanied Pakistani soldiers to their village in Rauzan where his father, uncle, neighbour and Dhar himself were fired upon.

Anil said the incident took place around 1pm on Apr 13, 1971 when Chowdhury had come with a band of followers of his father, Fazlul Quader Chowdhury, former Speaker and Acting President of Pakistan.

The four men were lined up and shot at. “We fell to the ground as soon as we were hit by the bullets,” said the 68-year-old wounded victim who lost a hand and was crippled for life.

“When I came to my senses, I found that I had been hit in the left hand and in my back.”

The witness found that the other three men lined up had all died. He fled the village and went to his mother’s ancestral home. “I got admitted in the Chittagong Medical College Hospital passing myself off as a Muslim with the help of a local doctor.”

The doctors at the hospital then took out the bullet in his back and amputated his left hand from the elbow.

The witness then said later he came to know that on that day, Apr 13, SQ Chowdhury and a group of Pakistani soldiers had visited several places in the area and carried out similar atrocities.

The three-judge International Crimes Tribunal–1 indicted Chowdhury for 23 war crimes charges, several of which were allegedly committed on Apr 13 from early morning until late afternoon when the Chittagong MP apparently guided the occupation forces from one community to another.

The witness cross-examination remains pending as Chowdhury’s defence was absent on the day.