Ministers trade blames over collaborators' list fiasco

Amid the widespread outcry over the list of the 1971 collaborators, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque blamed each other for the errors.
Kamal said the release of the list of Razakars, the Bengalis who collaborated with Pakistani forces during the war, would not have created such controversy if the Liberation War Affairs ministry had excluded some 996 names from it.
"The [recently-published] list names the people who were prosecuted under the Collaborators Tribunal Order from 1972 to 1973. Many had been sued out of enmity. Some 996 accused were acquitted. We sent a note containing the list of the acquitted people to the Liberation War Affairs Ministry.," he told the media at his office in the ministry in Dhaka on Wednesday (Dec 18).
Expressing discontent over the list of the collaborators, Khan said the Liberation War Affairs Ministry wanted the inputs and the home ministry provided it. "But they didn't inform us whether the name of the acquitted would be released or not."
In a statement on Tuesday (Dec 17), the Liberation War affairs ministry said that it did not give any input into the list of 10,789 members of Razakar, Al-Badr, Al-Shams, Shanti Committee and other anti-liberation forces published on Dec 15. The home ministry-prepared list was published without any change, it said
The first installment of the list has left people astonished as it was revealed that it apparently includes names of several freedom fighters and pro-liberation individuals.
Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque has claimed that previous governments who were in power for 30 years might have intentionally sabotaged the list of Razakars, the Bengalis who collaborated with Pakistani forces during the 1971 Liberation War.
“Over 30 years, different governments who were in power might have intentionally added names of freedom fighters in the list, which was with the home ministry. We could have never imagined that they [other governments] could do something like this, which led to this mistake, and we apologise,” he told a programme organized by Muktijoddha Sangsad's Manikganj chapter on Wednesday.
When asked, Home Minister Khan said he spoke to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina over the matter. "She, too, was saddened."
He, however, declined to comment over the Tk 600 million allocated to the Liberation War affairs ministry for preparing the list.
"I don't want to talk about it as he (Mozammel) is a senior minister," he added.
Asked whether the list was prepared as a tool of 'sabotage', Khan said they would look into it.
"A panel would be formed to find the errors and how it happened," he added.
As the list drew criticism and controversy, the Liberation War affairs ministry said on Wednesday that the list has been withheld.