On this March 26, Bangladesh will be 42 and on the threshold of 43 years of its emergence as an independent nation. The memories of the supreme sacrifices made by the common people in the face of the scorched-earth policy…
Politics is really about power; political power can be for the sake of power as also for the liberation of the people. Politics of liberation seeks to liberate all the classes in a state, including those who wield power. Quite…
These are thoughts that well up from somewhere deep in my soul. They rise, they gather in the core of the heart in me, to remind me that there was once a time when pride and tradition came together to…
“History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, but if faced With courage, need never be lived again.” These words of Maya Angelou haunt me as well as give me perspective. It haunts me when I try to make…
It has become difficult now to descend directly down the slope of memory and write about ’71, without the events unfolding all around us – casting shadows that twine in and out and toss our souls in different directions –…
Once more I have encountered Judge Agnieszka Klonowiecka-Milart, a member of the International Bench of the Extraordinary Chamber of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) or the hybrid tribunal, as it is popularly known, in Phnom Penh during the sessions of…
Young Captain Nadir Ali was posted to 3 Commando Battalion of Pakistan Army. This Battalion was deeply involved in Operation Search Light launched by Pakistan Army on the midnight of March 25, 1971. Its Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Zahir Alam…
Forced labor is any compulsory labor service particularly those demanded by a dominant military force on prisoners of war, detainees or conquered civilian population. In 1971, after Pakistan Army moved in force in Syedpur and surrounding villages, they were given…
I thought he was Abid’s doppelganger — maybe his brother. He had inherited Abid’s physique by chance. But when he had grabbed onto my hand so suddenly and had started berating me in his very distinctive coarse-hoarse voice, “What’s this?…
