Jamaat-e-Islami Mass-Murderers: A Nation Betrayed, a Soul to Reclaim in Bangladesh

A people’s republic at the edge - reclaiming the soul of Bangladesh from the claws of betrayal!!!

By all measures of history and justice, Bangladesh should today stand as a sovereign republic shaped by sacrifice, sanctified by blood, and nurtured by the indomitable will of its people. And yet, more than five decades after the Liberation War of 1971—a war in which we lost three million lives and endured the brutal sexual violence of 300,000 women—we find ourselves in a condition that Socrates might have called a corruption of the polis. For today, we are again besieged, not by the tanks and bullets of the Pakistani military, but by a darker, more insidious betrayal: the quiet rehabilitation of those who once sought to destroy us.

In 1971, when the soul of our nation cried for freedom, the Jamaat-e-Islami party chose to become the executioners of that dream. Rather than stand with the people of Bangladesh, they aligned themselves with the occupying Pakistani army, acting as collaborators, murderers, and violators of humanity itself. They were not merely political adversaries; they were agents of genocide. These are not accusations forged in anger—they are truths sealed by blood, recorded in the annals of history and verified by independent tribunals.

To quote Hannah Arendt, “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.” In the case of Jamaat-e-Islami, they were never revolutionaries; they were enemies of the republic from the very beginning. And yet today, they walk among us in suits and ties, embedded in institutions, holding positions of power—without ever having repented, without even acknowledging the existence of Bangladesh as a legitimate nation. This is not just a distortion of justice; it is a defilement of history.

The trials of the worst war criminals—those who orchestrated murder, rape, and systematic annihilation—were meant to be a catharsis for a wounded nation. The War Crimes Tribunal stood as a testament to our commitment to justice. And yet, that fragile bridge to moral rectitude was demolished overnight with the regime change on August 5, 2024, when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the last symbol of the liberation generation, was ousted under dubious and unconstitutional sinister conspiracy orchestrated by the American deep state—principally the CIA—alongside Pakistan’s most nefarious intelligence apparatus, the ISI, in collusion with the Jamaat-e-Islami butchers and their malevolent local accomplices.

What followed was not merely a political transition; it was a full-scale hijacking of the state. Within three days, on August 8, 2024, the interim government, led by Yunus, came to power—not through the will of the people, but through orchestration from within and manipulation from beyond. Like Macbeth who stole kingship through treachery and then clutched his throne with bloodied hands, this regime has neither the moral nor the legal legitimacy to govern.

And yet, it governs. Worse still, it governs with the direct support of those who once bathed this land in blood. The old collaborators now wear new faces, but their ideologies remain unchanged. They have infiltrated every level of our bureaucracy, our private sector, our academic institutions, and our judiciary. Their hands are on the levers of power, steering our nation not toward progress, but into a pit of historical amnesia and ideological decay to cast Bangladesh into the shadows of a Taliban-stylus night—where reason is exiled, freedom shackled, and the republic crumbles into the farce of a banana state, echoing only the dirge of lost dreams.

As Nietzsche warned, “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.” But what happens when the monsters themselves are allowed to return, cloaked in legitimacy, while the guardians of freedom are silenced or sidelined? We are in such a moment. A point where the founding truths of our nation are being actively erased, and replaced with a revisionist narrative that seeks to equate the victims and the perpetrators.

Let it be known: Bangladesh is not a playground for moral relativism. The horrors of 1971 cannot be rationalized, nor can they be negotiated away for political expediency. To forgive without repentance is not justice; it is complicity. And to release convicted war criminals back into the streets under legal pretense is not due process; it is a perversion of law.

We cannot speak of reconciliation when the wounds are still fresh and the perpetrators remain unrepentant. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that “peace is not merely the absence of tension, but the presence of justice.” And justice is what has been denied to our martyrs, our mothers, and our future generations.

Today, the spirit of our Liberation War—once our north star—is being buried under the weight of political cowardice and international indifference. The foreign powers that once supported our birth are now complicit in our re-colonization through silence or shadowy deals. And the local forces that should have stood guard over our republic have instead turned their backs, seduced by power or silenced by fear.

But Bangladesh is not a nation of cowards. We have risen from the ashes once before, and we must do so again. The current moment demands not despair, but resistance. As Camus said, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” Our existence as proud Bengalis, as children of the Liberation War, must become a rebellion against this illegitimate order.

Let us not delude ourselves: reclaiming Bangladesh will not be a task of speeches and slogans. It will demand sacrifice, coordination, and an unyielding commitment to the truth. We must rally the youth, whose sense of history has been diluted by years of misinformation. We must reclaim the institutions, not by force, but through civic courage and democratic mobilization. And we must do so with the clarity of purpose that animated our forefathers in 1971.

There is no middle path here. As Jean-Paul Sartre once observed, “You are your choices.” Bangladesh must now choose between remembering or forgetting, between standing or kneeling, between sovereignty or subjugation.

We cannot outsource our destiny to international actors or hope for miracles from compromised institutions. The battle for Bangladesh must be fought by its people, in its streets, in its universities, in its courts, and in its consciousness. This is not a call for violence—it is a call for vigilance. For organizing, educating, and asserting our democratic will in the face of creeping authoritarianism and ideological betrayal.

We must not forget the faces of our martyrs, the cries of our mothers, the blood-stained soil of our villages. They demand justice—not symbolic, but substantive. We must demand the immediate removal of war criminals from public life, the restoration of lawful democratic rule, and a recommitment to the ideals upon which Bangladesh was founded: liberty, secularism, justice, and dignity.

History will not absolve us if we fail. Nor will it be kind to those who stood by as the republic was desecrated. To those who have remained silent in this time of moral collapse, remember the words of Dante: “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”

A saddened Bangladesh, yes—but not a defeated one. We will not go quietly into the night. We will rise again, not because we desire power, but because we owe it to the millions who laid down their lives for a dream called Bangladesh in 1971.

Let us rise, then. Let us speak. Let us act. And above all, let us never forget.

Joy Bangla. Joy Bangabandhu. Joy Manush. Joy Mukti Juddho.

Written by Anwar A. Khan 

Author's Bio: Anwar A. Khan is a Dhaka-based independent political analyst focusing on South Asian geopolitics, security affairs, and political transitions.

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