At the heart of the concept of war crimes is the idea that an individual can be held responsible for the actions of a country or that nation’s soldiers. Genocide, crimes against humanity, mistreatment of civilians or combatants during war can all fall under the category of war crimes. Genocide is the most severe of these crimes.
The body of laws that define a war crime are the Geneva Conventions and the statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague (ICTY).
Forces Opposing Bangladesh Independence:
Regular Army : 80 000
Rangers and Militia : 24 000
Civilian Forces : 24 000
Razaker, Al-badar and Al-shams : 50 000 (estimated)
* Pakistan armed Forces
Headquarter : Eastern Command
Chief Martial Law Administrator : Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan (March 6 to August 1971)
Lt. Gen. A. A. K Niazi (August to December 16, 1971)
Adviser : Major General Rao Farman Ali
Chief of Stuff : Brig. Bakar Siddiqi
Regional Chief : Major General Nazir Hossain Shah
Major General S H Ansari
Major General Rahim Khan
* Local Collaborators
Peace Committee:
Established : April 1971
Convener : Khawza Khairuddin
Organizers : Prof. Golam Azam
A. Q. M Shafiqul Islam
Moulana Syed Masum
Razaker forces
Established : May 1971 (Khulna)
Ordinance : June 1971
Convener : Moulana A K M Yusuf
Director : A S M Zahrul Huq
Al-Badar and Al-Shams
Members of Islamic chhattra sangha, student wing of Jamat-e-Islam party killer force of Pakistan Army, like the SS of Hitler.
The Razakars…..should be specially helpful as members of rural communities, who can identify guerrillas (freedom fighters)”, an army officer (Pakistan) said…The government says it has already recruited more than 22,000 Razakars of a planned force of 35,000.’-New York Times, July 30, 1971
‘To help control of Bengali population, the army has been setting up a network of peace committees superimposed upon the normal civil administration, which the army cannot fully rely upon. Peace committee members are drawn from …..Beharis and from the Muslim Leagues and Jamat-e-Islami. The peace committees serve as the agent of army, informing on civil administration as well as on general populace. They are also in charge of confiscating and redistribution of shops and lands from Hindu and pro-independence Bengalis. The peace committee also recruits Razakars……many of them are common criminals who have thrown their lots with the (Pakistan) army.-The Wall Street Jornal, July 27,1971.
Jamaat leaders collaborated with them [Pakistan army] not only to advance their ideals of Pakistan as an Islamic state, but also to wreak vengeance on people they were at enmity with.
Referring to the drives against Bangalee freedom fighters, he wrote, “These operations were only a partial success because the West Pakistani troops neither knew the faces of the suspects nor could they read the lane numbers (in Bengali).
They had to depend on the cooperation of the local people.
(On the collaboration groups) these patriotic elements were organised into two groups. The elderly and prominent among them formed Peace Committees, while the young and able-bodied were recruited as Razakars (volunteers). The committees were formed in Dacca as well as in the rural areas and they served as a useful link between the Army and the local people.
Razakars were raised to augment the strength of the West Pakistani troops and to give a sense of participation to the local population. Their manpower rose to nearly 50,000 as against a target of 100,000.
Some of them were genuinely interested in the integrity of Pakistan and they risked their own lives to cooperate with the Army, but a few of them also used their links with the Army to settle old score with pro-AL people.
To stress the point once again that the Bangladeshi collaborators had purposes other than pursuing the ideology of an Islamic state, Salik recollects, “In the evening I met the officer who carried out the attack. What he said was enough to chill my blood. He confided. ‘There were no rebels, and no weapons. Only poor country-folk, mostly women and old men got roasted in the barrage of fire. It is a pity that the operation was launched without proper intelligence. I will carry this burden on my conscience for the rest of my life’.”
- Siddiq Salik, who was serving the Pakistan army as a major in Bangladesh in 1971, in his book ‘Witness to Surrender“
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