The list of Razakars the Bengalis who collaborated with Pakistani forces in 1971, has 1,000 names without details of address or parenthood, etc. Names of many Freedom Fighters have been included, causing much resentment and putting the credibility of the list released by the government under question.
Experts say that such a list prepared so many years after liberation is not acceptable however, the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs has said that names which have caused anger/resentment could be similar to those who were also collaborators. The ministry gave a statement saying that if any name was included by mistake, then through applications and examination, they could be removed.
A statement from the ministry said: “We apologise wholeheartedly for inadvertent mistakes in the list. In the boxes beside the names there are comments boxes: which have ‘acquitted’ ‘punished’ ‘appeal to have case repealed’ and ‘case withdrawn’, labels.
Every name is supported by either the father’s name or the name of village; those which do not have such information carry case numbers or the social identity, i.e. school teacher or chairman of an area.
But three names from Rajshahi, Mohsin advocate, Abdus Salam advocate and Golam Arif advocate do not have names of parents or addresses.
Therefore, it cannot be stated with certainty that Golam Arif is the Golam Arif Tipu who is the chief prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) said minister for liberation war affairs, AKM Mozammel Huq.
Researcher of the liberation war, Dr M Hassan, says that there must be an apology for the mistakes and efforts made to find out why the flaws happened in the first place.
Saying that more attention should have been given in making the list so many years after independence, he commented: “There must be references to identify the collaborators supported by four to five witnesses who will confirm that the person named is the actually a collaborator.”
“I feel that the controversy was created deliberately,” he added.
“The work should be done by people who are engaged in research; professors Anwar Hossain and Muntasir Mamun of Dhaka University have been working on these issues for a long time and they should have been consulted.”