A new prosecution witness in the trial of Mir Qasem Ali on Sunday said the Jamaat leader had ordered his followers in Al-Badr to abduct, torture and subsequently kill the innocent civilians during the War of Liberation. Nasir Uddin Chowdhury, a valiant Freedom Fighter (FF) from port city of Chittagong, testified against the current executive committee member of Jamaat-e-Islami as the third prosecution witness (PW).
Nasir, a journalist by profession, said he took part in the war as a member of Bangladesh Liberation Force (BLF), better known as Mujib Bahini.
“On one night in the month of November, I was captured by the Al-Badr men and taken to Dalim Hotel, their headquarters in Chittagong. There they put me on immense torture and repeatedly asked me about my arms and ammunition and whereabouts of my fellow FFs. At one stage Mir Qasem came and after knowing that I have not told his men anything yet, he asked them to beat me more,” Nasir said.
“They used to beat me every day. There I came to know from my fellow inmates and from the talking of the Al-Badr men that Mir Qasem was the main organizer of Al-Badr in Chittagong and the members of this notorious auxiliary force to the Pakistani army, used to abduct, torture and kill people on the order of Mir Qasem,” he added.
The witness further added that on December 6, 1971, he got to learn from his captors that there was a bombing on Chittagong airport on that day and Mir Qasem got injured in it. “After that they became more vicious and started to torture us even more,” Nasir said.
After his deposition, advocate Mizanul Islam, counsel for the accused, asked him four questions and pleaded for adjournment afterwards.
