DHAKA: Detained Jamaat Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami was Saturday remanded for five days in the ‘1971 genocide’ case filed with Pallabi Police Station, reopening the long-forgotten wound.

Metropolitan Magistrate Moazzem Hossain gave the order after CID Inspector Nurul Islam Siddiqui, also the investigation officer of the belated case, produced Nizami before his court with a 10-day remand prayer.

During the hearing, Hemayet Uddin Khan, assistant public prosecutor, told the court that Nizami was the organizer of the then Islami Chhatra Sangha and head of Al-Badar Bahini. “A total of 344 people of Alokdi village were killed under his leadership during the Liberation War.”  

Meanwhile, Nizami’s lawyer Moshiul Alam said that the Awami League government did not file the mass killings or war crimes case against the Jamaat leader after taking power in 1996, but it filed the case now out of ‘political vendetta’.

Earlier, Jamaat Secretary-General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid was taken on 3-day remand on Thursday while its leaders Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Mollah on 5 days remand a day before in the same case.

Freedom fighter Ameer Hossain Mollah filed the case on January 24, 2008 on charge of mass murders during the liberation war, arson attacks and marauding.

According to the case statement, some 60-70 people, led by the accused persons, massacred 344 villagers on 24 April 1971 at Alokdi village beside the Turag river in the city.

BDST: 1813 HRS, 17 JULY 2010