"This is very emotional for me to find the place where my father has been lying for the last 36 years," said Abul Ahsan, son of martyr Khandkar Abu Taleb, whose mutilated body was thrown into an underground tank of the pump house.

The once abandoned pump house at Mirpur in the city is now a memorial site, excavated and renovated by Liberation War Museum. The pump house stands witness not only to the demise of journalist Abu Taleb but many more during the Liberation War in 1971.

The museum in cooperation with the Bangladesh Army exhumed the mass grave and recovered 70 human skulls and 5392 bones from there, Liberation War Museum Trustees said yesterday at the inaugural programme of the memorial that was held at the site. The relatives of the martyrs inaugurated the memorial by opening its door and hoisting the national flag.

"For 36 years I could address my father as "Abba". The Pakistani Army stopped my calling him "Abba" again… they made my mother mentally ill. We knew the hard way how the absence of one person plunges a family into helplessness," Abul Ahsan said in his reaction to The Daily Star.

It is not only Abul Ahsan, lakhs of people of the country lost their fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, but the farce is the killers--the Pakistani Army and their local collaborators--wanted to obliterate the traces of genocide.

"No, this cannot go unpunished. Pakistan's propaganda denying the genocide of 1971 cannot go on," said Akku Chowdhury, the trustee of Liberation War Museum, during his welcome speech.

He said the excavation of the killing field and its preservation will make the golden days as well as the days of bloodshed memorable forever inspiring the next generation to call for putting the war criminals on trial.

After eight years of the excavation, the Liberation War Museum has built a triangular memorial at the torture chamber and at the mass grave keeping the structure of the pump house intact. Museum Trustee and Architect Rabiul Hossain designed the memorial based on the concept provided by another Trustee Mofidul Hoque while artists Rafiqunnabi and Muniruzzaman adorned it with a mural.

Dr MA Hasan, who conducted the forensic tests of the skulls and bones recovered, said most of the skulls were severed from the body with sharp weapons and some bore marks of being striking heavy weapons.

Hasan, also the director of War Crimes Fact Finding Committee, said Mirpur in Dhaka is the place where many more killing fields could be found.

Citing from research reports, he said there are over 5,000 killing fields across the country. Seventy percent of those are in the low-lying areas, as the killers killed and dumped the bodies in those places in order to hide their crime, he said, demanding initiatives to identify and preserve killing fields.

Liberation War Museum Trustee Mofidul Hoque in his closing speech said this museum would try to keep a collection of the information and the history of all killing fields in the country.

"This will intensify the demands for the trial of war criminals," he said, urging the caretaker government to take initiatives with the help of UN to try war criminals for crimes against humanity.

Hafsa Helal Malobika, granddaughter of martyr Abu Taleb, hoisted the flag to inaugurate the memorial site. She said she was happy to do it and added, "But I want justice for my grandfather."