By Tibra Ali. Prince Charles should take more care about who he gets his picture taken with. I once met him while I was drunk...but no picture was taken on that occasion (thank God.) The guy on the left of Charles in this picture is Chowdhury Mueen Uddin. He is one of the leaders of the British Bangladeshi Muslim community. I once had the pleasure of knowing some this community and they are all very nice people. But I found this community deeply divided on the question of the roles of certain of their important elders during the war of 1971. Chowdhury Mueen Uddin is one of those elders. About 42 years ago he was a young student at Dhaka University where he led a death squad that picked up and killed his Bengali and pro-Bangladeshi professors. He used to wear a scarf (or a muffler, as we say in Bangladesh) when he picked up his professors to keep his identity hidden. But during one his pickup missions the scarf fell from his face and the family of the victim recognized him as one of the students of the professor. When someone kills his mother its called matricide. When he kills his father its patricide. We invent these words to distinguish such murders from other every-day sort of murders because we feel that they are more depraved than the other murders. What is the word for killing ones teachers? What do we call the person who kills those who gave him the light of education? Is there a clever Greek or Latin sounding name for that? Chowdhury Mueen Uddin also picked up and killed one of my best friends dad, a distinguished professor of Bengali literature. The place where he and his collaborators kept their victims has been vividly described by the only person (Delwar Hossain) who managed to escape his clutches. There is a great writeup of the testimony of that man that describes the chilling details of the killing fields of Rayer Bazar. You can read a description of his testimony here: dhakatribune/crime/2013/sep/10/rayerbazar-mass-killing-lone-survivor-recounts-1971-horror But now Mueen Uddin is living safely in London, England. About 20 years or so ago Channel 4 did a documentary on him, presenting evidence why he should be tried for war-crimes. Nothing came of it. Instead using the extremely strict British anti-libel law he managed to get the documentary off the air. It is not available on Channel 4 but you can watch it on You Tube. You can find the film here (genocidebangladesh.org/?p=542) Chowdhury Mueen Uddin has been sentenced to death by the Bangladeshi War Crimes Tribunal in absentia. I dont believe in death penalty but it seems that despite the fact that this tribunal has been painted as a Kangaroo court by many (and with some justification) the tribunal actually had the cojones to take on this influential target. (Look, he is next Charles! How can you not be influential if youre photographed right next to him!) Chowdhury Mueen Uddin will never be brought to justice, whatever that means. This is the way of the world. But we must, MUST, make sure that we never stop haranguing this man and tell the story of his victims over and over again. In the meantime I have a modest proposal for a word that means he who tortures and slaughters his teachers. Its not Greek, and its not Latin. It is Chowdhury Mueen Uddin. huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/03/chowdhury-mueen-uddin-dea_n_4207835.html
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 21:26:39 +0000
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