Dhaka, July 3 (IANS) Abdul Quader Mollah of Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami party has been accused of plotting the deaths of at least 57 people in Dhaka during the 1971 war of liberation.
According to the first prosecution witness, freedom fighter Mozaffor Ahmed, Mollah orchestrated the killings in Keraniganj in the outskirts of the capital, the Daily Star reported.
Ahmed told the International Crimes Tribunal that Mollah led a team of “Razakars”, an anti-liberation force, for the killings Nov 25, 1971.
He told the tribunal that the collaborators torched his residence on the same day.
The three-member tribunal headed by chairman Justice A.T.M. Fazle Kabir has framed six charges against Mollah for his alleged involvement in murders and mass killings in 1971.
Prosecutor Sultan Mahmud Simon said that as an organiser of the Al Badr Bahani, an auxiliary force of the Pakistan Army, Mollah directly took part in mass killings, arson and looting during the war.
The Jamaat leader was arrested in July 2010 on charges of crimes against humanity committed in 1971.