Many Moulvibazar killing spots now hardly traceable

15 December 2009, 17:00 PM

Rajat Kanti Goswami, Moulvibazar

Lawmaker Syed Mohsin Ali inaugurates a function on Monday as freedom fighters and local people have taken initiative to preserve a mass grave on the south bank of Beri Lake in Moulvibazar town, above, a brick-built wall, constructed by locals at Panchgaon village marks the spot in Rajnagar upazila where Pakistani army killed 59 villagers on May 7 in 1971. Photo: STAR

Several dozen killing spots bearing the horrifying memories of 1971 massacre by occupation Pakistani forces are lying in utter negligence in the district as no memorial has been built there. During the Liberation War, Pakistani occupation forces and their local collaborators brought hundreds of innocent people including freedom fighters from different areas and killed them at 56 spots in the district. The bodies were buried in mass graves. The then government in 1999 selected eight of the 56 killing spots or mass graves for construction of monuments to preserve the history of war in the district but only one monument was built in 2003, local sources said. Left uncared, the other killing fields are now hardly traceable, said office bearers of district Muktijoddha Sangsad. The eight selected spots are Kamalpur and Noria villages in Sadar upazila, Panchgaon village in Rajnagar upazila, bank of Hakatir Dighi in Kulaura upazila, eastern side of rail track at Kulaura Railway Station, Saypur in Baralekha upazila, Shamsernagar airport in Kamalganj upazila and Varaura in Srimongal upazila. Of them, monument was built only at Shamsernagar airport in 2003. "The Pakistani army's torture cell on Moulvibazar Primary Teachers' Training Institute premises is fading from the memory of local people as no memorial plaque has been set there," Dewan Abul Khair Chowdhury, former district unit commander of Bangladesh Muktijoddha Sangsad, told The Daily Star. Niharendu Home Chowdhury Sajal, general secretary of Moulvibazar district unit of National Awami Party, said the government should take immediate steps to build monuments at every killing fields and mass graves in the district as well as other parts of the country for preserving the signs of Liberation War.