One survived to see justice
Not even a two-year-old boy was spared by Abdul Quader Mollah and his cohorts.They killed the boy, slamming him on the floor, slit the throats of his mother and two sisters, and raped his two other sisters, one of whom died from her wounds.All but one member of the family were killed just because Hazrat Ali Laskar, the father and a tailor by profession, was a supporter of the Awami League and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.More than 42 years later, justice was finally delivered and Mollah, the infamous “MirpurerKoshai” (Butcher of Mirpur), was executed at 10:01 last night.The Supreme Court in its verdict, released on December 5, said the manner in which Mollahhad led the killers in the planned murder of Laskar and his family members “exceeded all norms of humanity”.
The lone survivor of the massacre was one of Laskar’s daughters, then just 13 years old and a newly wed.She testified before International Crimes Tribunal-2 against Mollah last year behind closed doors.The Daily Star is not divulging her identity for obvious reasons.She told the court her father rushed back to their Kalapani Lane home in Mirpur-12 from work around dusk on March 26, 1971.He was saying Quader Mollah would kill him.Laskar closed the door and said Mollah, Akhtar Gunda, his Bihari (non-Bangalee) accomplices and the Pakistan army were chasing him, the 55-year-old witness told the court. The entire family was home.The witness and her sister Amena hid under the bed as asked by their father.She then heard Mollah and the Biharis approaching the door. They shouted, “Son of a b****, open the door, otherwise we will hurl bombs.”As her father refused to open the door, they exploded a bomb.When her mother, holding a kitchen knife, opened the door, they shot her, said the witness.When Laskar tried to hold his wife, Mollah grabbed him by the collar, and said, “Son of a p**, will you not support the Awami League now? Will you not follow Bangabandhu? Will you not chant the slogan ‘JoyBangla’?”Her father then begged Mollah and Akhtar Gunda to spare him, but Mollah dragged her father out of the room while his accomplices slit the throats of her mother and two sisters — Khodeja and Taslima — with a machete.When her two-year-old brother Babu started crying, they killed the boy by slamming him on the floor,she said.Hearing Babu’s cries, her sister Amena began to whimper. They then dragged Amena from under the bed and tortured her to death, she said.They also dragged the witness out. She lost consciousness after she was hit with something sharp.When she regained consciousness, she felt severe pain in the abdomen, and found her clothes all torn.She managed to walk toa house at Fakirbari,where she was given first aid. Her father-in-law took her to his home the following day, said the witness.At the last part of her testimony,she identified Mollah, who was in the dock. She said, “He [Mollah] was young then … He used to wear a Panjabi.I want to ask him where my father is.”The tribunal on February 5 sentenced him to life imprisonment for killing her father and family members.The Supreme Court on September 17 sentenced the Jamaat-e-Islami leader to death, overruling the verdict of Tribunal-2.The verdict of the Supreme Court bench noted that Mollah never showed any repentance for his acts and neither had his counsels prayed for the minimum sentence. “There is no cogent ground to take a lenient view in awarding the sentence,”
One survived to see justice
