The bleeding wound afflicted on our psyche by the episode of 1971 was crudely opened up when Ali Ahsan Mujahid, secretary general of the Jamaat, while talking to newsmen after his deliberations with the EC before the election for ninth parliament arrogantly denied the existence of any war criminal or anti-liberation force in the country.

Jolted and taken aback by Mujahid’s arrant lie, viewers of one of the TV channels only days later were further shocked to learn from an acolyte of the Jamaat that our fully blown War of Liberation, the worst genocide after the World War II, was just a ‘civil war’. There must be a limit to the lunacy of men, even of those on the lunatic fringe! But there isn’t any, as is evident from the observation of the Jamaat diehards.

Forty-two years on, the trauma of the tragedies accompanying the Liberation War refuses to go away. The two pronouncements coming from Jamaat in rather quick succession only helped to aggravate the wound and add insult to injury, as well as remind us afresh of the nightmare experience of atrocities perpetrated by the Jamaat collaborators of the occupation forces, and the impending danger from the same quarter.

Since the beginning of our statehood, the hostility with our erstwhile adversary has stopped. As the practice goes in international relations after any major conflict there was reconciliation, and we have a first class working relationship with Pakistan —notwithstanding odd irritants. There are even attitudinal changes, where many Pakistanis this scribe came across were found to be genuinely penitent and eager to start afresh a new chapter with their one time co-traveller. Writing in newspapers, thoughtful Pakistanis have urged their government to go the extra mile in restoring old emotional links with Bangladesh, which is, in their view, more than just another country and vital partner in South Asian politics.

While these positive changes are indeed encouraging, the Jamaat never seemed reconciled to the reality of Bangladesh, although it is all too eager to reap the fruits of our sovereign existence and a place in the body politic of the country it opposed tooth and nail. They have never been contrite over their past misdeeds — particularly their diabolic role during the Liberation War. They, including Mujahid, organised the al-Badr, the killing squad for murdering the freedom fighters, burning their homesteads, and violating the honour of the women who were, perforce, left behind.

The bestial killing of the country’s intellectuals is believed to have been masterminded and executed by Jamaat and its anti-liberation cohorts. It is a great irony that the claim of Bangladesh having no war criminal or anti-liberation force comes from one who himself is credibly accused of organising some of the killing squads as the leader of Jamaat’s student front.

In the garb of Islam, it is a different breed altogether, a class of unrepentant and hardened sinners who consistently lie in denying their heinous role in 1971, or try to justify their crimes. Farthest away from the lofty tenets of Islam, as well as the teachings of the scriptures and the Holy Prophet, they, however repeatedly take refuge in Islam itself to exploit the religious sentiments of the common folk to advance their hidden agenda of pushing the country into a fascist and medieval mould, in which obscurantism will be the nation’s destiny.

During the BNP-Jamaat regime, Jamaat’s success was phenomenal in that direction, of course with the blessings and patronisation of the alliance’s senior partner. The Jamaat surreptitiously proceeded to eliminate likely voices that could be raised against their game plan. Religious militancy, which was called the media’s creation by Matiur Rahman Nizami, could conveniently be used to cut the pro-liberation forces to size.

The Jamaat, not much affected by the reformist politics of the unusual caretaker dispensation, raised its ugly head and, in fact, thrown a challenge to the country and its founding principles. In doing so, it has assailed the rampart on which rests our War of Liberation, our independence, the constitution, and the dreams of our progeny. It appears ready for a fight, and has thrown down the gauntlet.

On both occasions, we capitulated. However, there are flickers of hope this time, when there is unanimity for resisting this anti-liberation force by putting them in the dock for trial of their human right violations in 1971. The whole nation is keeping its fingers crossed and observing how the authorities go about in dealing with the enemies of our independence.

Brig (retd) Hafiz is a former DG

of BIISS.