Shukharanjan Bali, a key defence witness for the late Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee, on Thursday filed a written complaint accusing former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and 31 others of his enforced disappearance, abduction, torture, and illegal transfer to India.
Bali lodged the complaint with the office of the chief prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunals, alleging that he was abducted from the ICT gate during the ousted Awami League鈥檚 government on November 5, 2012 after he refused to give false testimony against Sayedee.
Hasina, who is now staying in India and is being tried in absentia on charge of her alleged superior command responsibility in the 2024 July uprising atrocities, has been made accused in several hundred cases, including聽 murders, enforced disappearances, and extra-judicial killing during her 16-year authoritarian rule.聽
War crimes convict Delwar Hossain Sayedee, 86, died at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital in the capital in jail custody on August 14, 2023.
Sayedee was arrested on June 29, 2010 on charges of hurting religious sentiments and on August 2, 2010 he was shown arrested in a case over crimes against humanity committed during the Liberation War in 1971.
On February 28, 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 sentenced Sayedee to death for war crimes in Pirojpur, Sayedee鈥檚 home district. Later, the death penalty was commuted to a jail sentence until his death 鈥� in response to an appeal seeking his acquittal of the charges.
Bali had come on November, 2012 to testify as a defence witness to the International Crimes Tribunal-1 from where he was abducted and became a victim of enforced disappearance after police dragged him out of a car carrying Sayedee鈥檚 defence lawyers and himself.
He had earlier refused the then government鈥檚 order to give false testimony against Sayedee to the effect that he was involved in killing his brother Bisha Bali during the Liberation War.
According to the complaint, Bali was held in a secret detention centre, where he was blindfolded, handcuffed, and tortured. He was then forcibly transported to India where he remained first in a police station at Bashirhat jail for 22 days and later he was sent to the Damdam jail where he was kept illegaly for five years. He was handed over to the Border Security Force through the Boikari Bazar border near Bashirhat after detaining him in the secret detention centre in Bangladesh for two months and 17 days.
His location was eventually discovered by Sayedee鈥檚 son, Masud Sayedee, who traced him to an Indian prison and arranged for Bali鈥檚 son to visit him and confirm his identity. Bali was later released following pressure from local and international human rights groups.
Bali alleged that after returning to Bangladesh, he was too scared to stay at his village and has since remained in hiding. He came to the tribunal to file the complaint from his undisclosed location, accompanied by Parvez Hossain, a lawyer linked to the jamaat.
The complainant named several high-profile individuals, including former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, former ICT-1 chair Md Nizamul Haq, former law minister Shafique Ahmed, former state minister for law Qamrul Islam, ICT-1 member ATM Fazle Rabbi, Sayedee鈥檚 case investigator Helal Uddin, former prosecutors Syed Haider Ali and Rana Das Gupta, and investigation agency coordinator M Sanaul Haque.
Former AL lawmaker AKM Awal, former Pirojpur district public prosecutor Alauddin, several local Awami League leaders, and activists have also been named in the list of the accused.
Bali accused the AL leaders of threatening, intimidating, and torturing him to compel him to give false testimony against Sayedee.