Mir Quasem’s Dalim Hotel was a ‘death factory’

Chittagong’s Dalim Hotel has been described as a death factory where Mir Quasem Ali would torture and kill people who wanted Bangladesh break away from Pakistan.

Minto Chowdhury and Quazi Shahreen Huqbdnews24.com
Published : 2 Nov 2014, 06:49 PM
Updated : 3 Sept 2016, 11:02 PM

The building at Anderkilla was called ‘Mahamaya Bhaban’ before members of the Al-Badr grabbed it from a Hindu family during the 1971 war.

The militia formed to assist the invading Pakistan Army set up their torture camp in the building and renamed it ‘Dalim Hotel’.

Mir Quasem Ali, who headed the Al-Badr in the port city, was condemned to death by the second International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) on Nov 2, 2014.

The top financier of Jamaat-e-Islami and a member of its central executive committee, he was handed death in two charges of murder at the hotel.  

The verdict had quoted from the book ‘Documentary Evidence: Chittagong in Liberation War’. It was submitted to the tribunal by the prosecution. Al-Badr members and Pakistani troops would take freedom fighters to Dalim Hotel to torture them unto death, the book said.

“It has been proved that the accused Mir Quasem Ali had been in steering and guiding position of the Al Badr force headquartered at Dalim Hotel which was a ‘death-factory’ indeed,” the judges said in the verdict.

Freedom fighters and innocent people would be tortured using bayonets and their captors would break their limbs.

Several of those tortured at the hotel testified in court. Freedom fighters Jahangir Alam Chowdhury and Syed Md Emran recalled their torture at Dalim Hotel from 43 years ago.

Ali and his armed cohorts would patrol Chittagong town during the war, the two had told bdnews24.com.

If they came to know of any freedom fighter taking shelter in the town, its members, aided by Pakistani military, would raid hideouts and take the fighters to the torture camp.

Jahangir Chowdhury was caught on Nov 23 from Chittagong’s Kadamtali, and Syed Emran and journalist Nasir Uddin Chowdhury on Nov 30 from Chandgaon and Anderkilla respectively. They all were taken to Dalim Hotel.

They were blindfolded, arms and legs restrained, and they would be hung upside down, Chowdhury and Emran told bdnews24.com. The Al-Badr men would torture them with electric shocks for information about other freedom fighters’ whereabouts.

If the detainees wanted water, they would be made to drink urine instead, they added.

Jahangir Chowdhury said: “We would hear groans and screams from every room throughout the days.”

The three freedom fighters, who still bear the torture marks, said they were in captivity until the morning of Dec 16, when Bangladesh secured victory against Pakistan Army.

The tribunal’s verdict for Mir Quasem said the witness testimonies from those who were detained at Dalim Hotel reveal the ‘severe physical and mental tortures’ the Al-Badr men meted out to the captives. “Mir Quasem Ali was involved in this barbaric system.”

Apart from the Dalim Hotel, the Al-Badr had torture camps at Dowst Mohammad Building in Chamrhar Gudam area, Dewan Hotel in Dewanhat area, and Salma Manjil in Panchlaish area.

The verdict said though there were torture camps at several other places including Goods Hill, Dalim Hotel on the Old Telegraph Road was a ‘horror house’ for those fighting to secede from Pakistan.

Mir Quasem lent direct support and encouragement to all the crimes that took place at Dalim Hotel including the murder of adolescent freedom fighter Jashim Uddin Ahmed, it had said.

Relatives of some of those caught could never find their bodies.

Witnesses said many people including freedom fighters were killed after torture and their bodies thrown into the Karnaphuli River on orders of Mir Quasem.

Syed Emran said more than 200 people were tortured at the three-storey Dalim Hotel.

He said he heard about murders of Jashim and several others through torture from other detainees at the camp.

Mir Quasem knew ‘everything about all sorts of crime’ that took place at Dalim Hotel.

Witnesses said when he would enter the hotel, Al-Badr guards would say ‘Mr Quasem is here. Mr Commander has come.”

They said Mir Quasem stopped going to the camp in the second week of December 1971.

Al-Badr members fled the hotel on Dec 14 and locals rescued the detainees on Dec 16 breaking open its doors.