| Submit your comments on this article |
| Bangladesh |
| Daleem Hotel survivors still haunted by torture |
| 2016-03-09 |
| [Dhaka Tribune] Survivors of Daleem Hotel, used by Mir Quasem Ali ...Jamaat-e-Islamic Central Committee member and Saudi money man in Bangla. Currently waiting to be hanged.... as a torture cell during 1971 Liberation War, yesterday hailed the Supreme Court verdict of upholding death sentence for the war criminal, saying it cleansed Chittagong of a stigma. During the war, the local al-Badr forces grabbed the Mohamaya Bhaban from a Hindu family in the city’s Andarkilla, renamed it Daleem Hotel and set up a torture cell. Describing Daleem Hotel as a death factory, the International Crimes Tribunal said pro-liberation people were tortured and killed there under the leadership of the notorious Mir Quasem. Syed Md Emran, a prosecution witness and a group commander of Liberation Force freedom fighters, narrated how he endured 16 days of torture at Daleem Hotel. "I was a first-year graduate student when I joined the Liberation War. In the early hours of November 30, Mir Quasem and his men besieged my house and detained me along with my elder brother. Ten to twelve more freedom fighters were picked up from different parts of the city. "We were taken to Daleem Hotel where we were tortured brutally. During confinement, I was mostly kept blindfolded and my arms and legs were tied. I was hit with sticks and electric wire for information about freedom fighters. Quasem, who controlled the torture camp, interrogated me himself," said Emran, who along with some 150 other detainees were rescued by freedom fighters from the torture cell. Another survivor, freedom fighter Nasir Uddin Chowdhury, said: "I was caught from Andarkilla area on November 30 and was taken to Daleem Hotel. The captives in the makeshift torture cell were tortured brutally for information about the whereabouts of freedom fighters. "We were given electric shocks, hung upside down and beaten with iron rods. They also pressed burning cigarette butts against our bodies to extract information." Jahangir Chowdhury, who was the deputy chief of Joy Bangla Bahini, said: "Mir Quasem’s son tried to convince me so that I do not testify against the war criminal. However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... I told him that I will testify against Quasem despite all odds. Now I am over the moon with the verdict. "I was held captive and tortured for 26 days. Cruel forms of tortures were inflicted on us. We were kept in crammed rooms and there was no toilet for us. If the captives asked for drinking water, they were given urine instead." Another survivor, Chittagong Independent University’s acting vice-chancellor Prof Dr Irshad Kamal Khan said: "The captives were blindfolded and their arms and legs were tied. We were served meal once a day. I cannot say for sure how many days I was held captive in the camp. We used to hear groans and screams coming from different rooms of the torture cell at different times of the day." Apart from Daleem Hotel, the port city had other makeshift torture cells in Nandan Kanon’s Islamia Hotel, Panchlaish’s Salma Manjil, Chamrar Gudam’s Dost Mohammad Building, and Dewanhat’s Dewan Hotel, according to Liberation War researcher Dr Mahfizur Rahman. |
| Posted by:Fred |