War child Monwara Clerk demands citizenship

A child born of a pregnant mother brutally raped and bayoneted to death by Pakistani soldiers during the 1971 Liberation has asked for Bangladesh citizenship and the voting rights that go with it.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 26 Dec 2015, 04:02 PM
Updated : 26 Dec 2015, 06:56 PM

Monwara Begum Clerk, a war child born after the Liberation War in 1971, spoke at a press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity on Saturday that was organised by the Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee.

Now a Canadian citizen, Clerk also demanded compensation for those who were affected by the war.

Asking for capital punishment for war criminals, Clerk said, “I want my citizenship and voting rights here. Those who left the country and those who still live here should receive compensation if they were affected by the war."

Clerk’s story first hit the spotlight when she visited Bangladesh to get her birth certificate.

She was born with bayonet wounds as the Pakistan Army brutally raped, tortured and murdered her pregnant mother during the 1971 Liberation War.

A Canadian couple adopted the 6-month-old baby after a doctor saved the child by operating on her mother's body. The mother could not be saved.

Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee Chairman Shahriar Kabir urged the government to accept the war children as citizens of Bangladesh.

Shyamoli Nasrin Chowdhury, widowed in the war, spoke on behalf of the victims of the liberation war.

She lambasted BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia for her recent remarks on the martyrs of ’71.

Chowdhury said, “Khaleda Zia speaks for Pakistan.”

The country needs a ‘Holocaust Denial Law’ to lessen the 44-year trauma of the victims, she said.