List of Pakistani collaborators underway

Different agencies are working to prepare a list of the Pakistani collaborators who aided the military in fighting against the country’s freedom fighters and carrying out the massacres during the nine-month-long war of independence.

The liberation war affairs minister AKM Mozammel Huq on Sunday told the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry that the home affairs ministry was preparing the list of the registered Razakars who as collaborators worked as an auxiliary force of the Pakistani occupation army.

The members of the auxiliary force used to draw monthly remuneration from the police stations, he added.

Following the instructions, the minister said, offices of deputy commissioners were working to make the lists of the unpaid associates of Razakar, Al Badr and Al-Shams members from the documents preserved in record books of the districts.

Jatiya Party lawmaker Kazi Firoz Rashid said the committee suggested collecting the gazette notifying names of the members of national assembly and members of provincial assembly who took oaths after war began against the seats declared vacant by the Pakistani regime.

‘We want to make the list of the MNAs and MPAs from the election commission gazette to determine who were nominated by the Pakistani regime against the vacant seats after the Awami League nominated MNAs and MPAs had taken part in the war,’ Firoz told New Age.

Standing committee chairman Shajahan Khan, who has been pursuing to make complete lists of the freedom fighters and Pakistani collaborators, said that Jatiya Muktijoddha Council Act 2002 would be amended empowering the council to make the lists of the collaborators.

‘The draft amendment is now at the vetting stage in the law ministry,’ he said.

‘The provision for making the list of the collaborators will be included in the allocation of business of Muktijoddha Council,’ Shajahan said adding that a new set of rules for JMC would also be formulated.  

Shajahan further said that the committee ordered M Rafiqul Islam, who took lease of the two basements of Gulistan Complex, to pay his due of Tk 1.19 crore within a month

to Muktijoddha Kalyan Trust.

The illegal structures developed in the Gulistan Complex and its basements would be removed soon, Shajahan said.

A sub-committee led by Shajahan was formed to help the liberation war affairs ministry for reclaiming possessions of the Kalyan Trust properties from the illegal occupiers.

Kazi Firoz Rashid and AL lawmaker AB Tajul Islam are other members of the committee.

The standing committee also recommended the liberation war affairs ministry for taking measures to protect sites related to the history of the war.

Other committee members Mayeenuddin Khan Badal, retired major Rafiqul Islam, Bir Uttam and officials of the ministry and its subordinate agencies were present at the meeting.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net