Jamaat-e-Islami Mass-Murderers Have No Moral Right to Speak for Bangladesh

In 1971, when we were engaged in a life-or-death struggle to secure an independent and sovereign homeland—Bangladesh—the Jamaat-e-Islami death squads revealed themselves as merciless fiends. 

Side by side with the barbaric Pakistani occupation forces, they butchered millions of the freedom-loving people of this land, all while roaring the fanatical slogans, “Naraye Takbir, Allah-Hu-Akbar! Pakistan is the sacred land of Islam.” Their piety was a veil; their slogans, a shroud concealing genocide committed in the name of faith. The pretence of religiosity only amplified the horror, for it cloaked mass murder under the guise of divine sanction.

These monstrous creatures—harbingers of death and destruction—were merciless mass murderers during the genocide of 1971. They not only slaughtered countless innocents but also denied them the dignity of burial. Instead, they bellowed blasphemous chants of “Naraye Takbir, Allahu Akbar, Pakistan Zindabad,” abandoning lifeless bodies to be desecrated by dogs, jackals, vultures, and other scavengers of human flesh. This was not merely inhuman; it was a deliberate effort to wipe out every trace of Bengali existence and dignity.

I swear upon my own eyes—I witnessed these ghastly scenes firsthand in 1971. Even now, whenever I summon the harrowing memories of those dark days, my eyes involuntarily brim with tears. Their crimes are beyond forgiveness, beyond redemption, under any law of man or heaven. No moral code, no religious doctrine, no civilised principle can ever justify what they orchestrated. The scale of their depravity was such that the human conscience recoils even decades later at the mere recollection.

If those monstrous butchers were hanged a hundred times over, even that would fall short of delivering true justice for the unspeakable atrocities they committed. There is no punishment proportionate to genocide; there is only the solemn responsibility to ensure that justice is administered as completely as human institutions allow.

Those mass murderers who yet remain—whether imprisoned or lurking as fugitives—must, without exception, meet the final reckoning at the hangman’s noose. Only through such unflinching justice can we hope to offer even a sliver of solace to the millions of shattered families whose lives were torn apart by the horrors of 1971. The pain of those families echoes through the decades, demanding not vengeance but justice that is firm, principled, and unwavering.

I have been a devoted field-level political observer from 1966 to this very day, witnessing events across the sacred land of Bangladesh from the closest proximity. I swear by what my own eyes have seen: nearly 98% of the killings during the July–August 2024 atrocities were perpetrated with brutal intent by the Jamaat–Shibir butchers. If the masterminds of these malignant forces are rigorously interrogated, the unvarnished truth will surface swiftly, and the real perpetrators can be brought to severe justice. Even if the victims’ families are questioned, the same stark truths will inevitably emerge before the nation.

The Jamaat-e-Islami mass-murderers of 1971—those monstrous creatures and harbingers of death—were merciless in unleashing genocide. They not only slaughtered innocents but denied them their final rites. Once again, their chants of “Naraye Takbir, Allahu Akbar, Pakistan Zindabad” rose not as expressions of faith but as battle cries of barbarism. Their abandonment of human bodies to the beasts of the earth symbolised their attempt to erase not only lives but memory itself.

I repeat: I swear upon my own eyes—I witnessed these ghastly scenes firsthand in 1971 and then in 2024. Whenever I recall them, grief overwhelms me. Their crimes remain beyond forgiveness and beyond redemption. No measure of punishment, however severe, could truly compensate for their immeasurable cruelty.

Even if those monstrous butchers were hanged a hundred times, justice would still remain incomplete. And those who yet survive—whether imprisoned or hidden—must face justice without exception, for only then can the nation’s conscience rest. Only then can we pay homage to the millions whose dreams, families, and futures were extinguished.

When a nation is born through fire and blood, memory does not merely record history—it becomes the moral foundation of national identity. For Bangladesh, the wounds of 1971 and 2024 remain unhealed precisely because they were inflicted with ideological ferocity and calculated brutality. Villages were torched; intellectuals abducted and executed; women savagely violated as instruments of terror; and ordinary citizens slaughtered simply for dreaming of freedom. Those who aided and abetted these crimes do not bear guilt for a fleeting moment—they carry an eternal stain.

Jamaat-e-Islami and its militant appendage, Al-Badr, did not merely disagree with the idea of Bangladesh—they waged war against its very birth. Their betrayal was not philosophical; it was murderous. To treat their crimes as mere political divergence is to desecrate the graves of our martyrs. To permit these unrepentant collaborators to occupy public office, shape national discourse, or mobilise political machinery is to invite the resurgence of the very forces that attempted to annihilate our existence.

The International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh must be returned to the one when it was first frame in 2009—our sovereign mechanism to adjudicate atrocity crimes—arose from the nation’s solemn duty to its martyrs. Where individual criminal responsibility is proven, justice must be executed fully and fearlessly. Yet accountability must extend beyond the courtroom. Four imperatives stand before us:

First, political organisations with proven involvement in mass murder, treason, or violent extremism must be proscribed under existing laws. Democracy protects freedoms, but it must never dignify the orchestrators or apologists of genocide.

Second, documentation and historical truth must continue relentlessly. Every testimony, archive, and judicial record must be preserved so that denial becomes impossible. Education must teach not only the glory of liberation but the depravity of collaboration.

Third, religious and civic leadership must reject any theology or dogma that sanctifies violence or strips humanity from fellow citizens. Reintegration is conceivable only where there is sincere remorse, full acknowledgment of guilt, and a genuine pledge of reparation—never as a shortcut to impunity.

Fourth, the international community must support fair trials, historical documentation, and legal cooperation to ensure that accountability is viewed not as political vengeance but as moral necessity.

There is moral clarity here: those who tried to prevent Bangladesh’s birth in 1971 and again in 2024 for their brutal murders of thousands of students and maiming of thousands of pupils cannot be rightful participants in shaping Bangladesh’s destiny. Yet moral clarity must be paired with legal discipline. Echoing Elie Wiesel, “The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.” We must not be indifferent—not to our martyrs, nor to justice. And as Edmund Burke warned, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Thus, our refusal to do nothing must be resolute, lawful, and enduring.

To ban Jamaat-e-Islami and revoke the citizenship of its unrepentant adherents is not political revenge—it is national self-preservation. To allow their return to statecraft or public life would resurrect the poisonous ideology that brought the horrors of 1971 and 2024 to life: the weaponisation of religion, the replacement of conscience with fanatic loyalty, and the erasure of a plural national identity.

Justice, however, is more than punishment. It demands the restoration of the social fabric: reparations for the violated, memorials for the martyred, and socio-economic rehabilitation for communities broken by war. The nation’s public spaces must remember; its children must learn; its conscience must remain vigilant.

Finally, those who once raised the flag of treachery must speak openly and truthfully about their crimes. Where remorse is genuine, reconciliation may be possible—but never guaranteed, given the Brobdingnagian scale of war crimes in 1971 and mass-killings in 2024. Shallow contrition can never purchase a return of these direful hellish Pakistani creatures to walk freely in the sacred land of Bangladesh and speak for Bangladesh.

Bangladesh’s greatness will be secured not through forgetting, but through remembrance—not through silence, but through truth. Let the law stand firm. Let the archives remain open. Let the nation teach its children the price of freedom.

Those who once took arms—material or ideological—against the birth of Bangladesh and again slaughtered thousands of pupils in 2024 have forfeited all moral and civic claim to speak for the nation they sought to annihilate. As Rabindranath Tagore reminded us, “Facts are many, but the truth is one.” And the truth is clear: treachery against the motherland is neither erased by time nor diluted by political reinvention.

To honour our martyrs and safeguard the Republic, justice must prevail—steadfastly, courageously, uncompromisingly. Nelson Mandela said, “Freedom is meaningless if it does not include the freedom to be wronged and still seek justice.” And again, Burke warns us of the price of inaction.

We must bear ourselves with vigilance and resolve, ensuring that remembrance does not become ritual and that accountability remains a living, enduring principle.

This is a genuine cry for justice, and it is imperative to punish the butchers of 1971 and of 2024 and halt them eternally to speak for Bangladesh.

Written by Anwar A. Khan 

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