The Ganajagaran Mancha has welcomed the Bangla New Year at Sherpur’s Sohagpur, also known as the ‘Village of Widows’ after Mohammad Kamaruzzaman bathed in the blood of their men in 1971.
Published : 14 Apr 2015, 06:15 PM
Bangladesh hangs Islamist leader Kamaruzzaman for war crimes ‘worse than Nazis’
‘Peace’ in Sohagpur, the village of widows
Ganajagaran Mancha to celebrate Pahela Baishakh with widows of Sohagpur
Bangladesh executed war crimes convict Jamaat-e-Islami leader Kamaruzzaman last Saturday.
He had been condemned to death for a massacre he committed at Sohagpur during the Liberation War.
About a hundred activists of the Mancha, a secular platform pressing for the maximum penalty of war crimes convicts, reached Sohagpur on Tuesday afternoon and paid tributes to the martyrs.
They exchanged greetings with the women who were widowed during the war. They carried gifts for 32 of them and had lunch with them with Pahela Baishakh delicacy – fried Hilsha fish and rice soaked in water.
The Mancha was formed two years ago when thousands joined a protest against a ‘lenient’ sentence handed down to criminal Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla – known as the ‘butcher of Mirpur’.
On July 25, 1971, Kamaruzzaman led the Pakistan Army to Sohagpur, killing 120 men and raping their women.
So many were widowed that the place came to be called the ‘village of widows’.
She had an 8-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter and was expecting another child.
“One day, Kamaruzzaman’s men came to our house and hit my husband Hossain Mia in the chest with weapons. He became bed-ridden and died after five months,” she said.
Sahara Khatun, 64, said Kamaruzzaman had a hand in the killing of her husband.
“We have been hapless ever since... I’ve prayed to Allah for justice and finally thanked the Almighty after he was hanged.”
The war crimes tribunal sentenced Mymensingh’s Al-Badr commander Kamaruzzaman to death for his atrocities.
The Appellate Division upheld the tribunal’s verdict, observing the crimes were “worse than the Nazis”.
Subsequently, the top appeals court threw out the convict’s plea to review his sentence, clearing all hurdles to him being led to the gallows.