From: must@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mustafa Syed)
Subject: Re: Mass grave unearthed in Bangladesh
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 20:57:14 GMT

In article <SAHMED.92Dec18220511@occs.cs.oberlin.edu> sahmed@occs.cs.oberlin.edu (Saif Ahmed) writes:
>                              Agence France Presse
>
>                               December  15, 1992
>
>HEADLINE: 'Death house' uncovered 21 years after  Bangladesh
>independence
>
>DATELINE: DHAKA
>
>in the suburbs of the Bangladeshi capital but was too poor and to
>busy looking after her sick husband to move out.  Then a bulldozer
>working on a neighbouring building site uncovered the grisly source --
>a mass grave of victims of the Pakistan military's brutal repression

	Now this is clear mis reporting OR reporting with an AGENDA. How
	the hell this grave is of "victims of the Pakistan military's 
	brutal repression" AND not of "VICTIMS of the bestiality of the
	so-called Bangladeshi Freedom fighters"?????????

>of Bangladesh's independence movement in 1971.  "When I came to stay
>in this house it was filled with human excreta and layers of blood on
>the floor, blood hand prints on the walls, but I never realised I have
>been living over a mass grave," said Banu, who moved into the
>
>house she found abandoned after the independence war in the city's
>Mirpur area.  She has since moved to a nearby slum.  Last week, the
>bulldozer accidently damaged part of the two-room house, exposing a
>20-foot deep dungeon whose entrance had been hidden by a steel cover
>in one of the rooms.  From the knee-deep water, a jaw bone with
>several teeth and some ribs were recovered while at least seven other
>skulls have been found.  The "death house," as neighbours called it,
>was discovered 10 days ahead of the independence victory day
>celebrations on Wednesday.  Around 120 skulls were recovered soon
>after independence in and around the house, according to residents,
>who said they were not aware of the dungeon.  Some 1,000 mass graves
>have been found across
> Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, folowing its nine-month
>independence war, according to an academic study published here.
>Pro-independence sympathisers as well as freedom fighters were
>tortured to death and thousands of women raped during the war,
>according to historians.  Some three million Bengalis were killed or

	Which historians? Do these HISTORIANS also recount the
	mass killings/torture/rape and annihilation of those Biharis
	and others non-sympathisers of so-called "freedom fighters"!
	As for the figure of 3 million....that is just a figmant of
	imagination. Huge numbers of innocent people were brutally
	killed by BOTH sides BUT both put together account for approx.
	1 million people. A tragedy, agreed, but to inflate figures
	is simply mis-representation of facts.

>remain missing.  Many families of the dead or missing have given up
>hope of seeing their loved ones again with no official efforts to
>trace new graves undertaken for more than a decade.
>
>    Shahabuddin Ahmed, a government agent on the nearby construction
>site, said the house would normally have been demolished to make way
>for a low-income housing scheme.
>
>
>    But Bangladesh Works Minister Rafiqul Islam Mia said he would
>visit the "death house" soon to consider what action to should be
>taken in memory of the dead.
>
>    "It is a tragedy that it was not found earlier," he told AFP.
>
>    A neighbour, Mohammad Saleem, said bodies were found in and around
>the house soon after the war ended on December 16, 1971. Local police
>were called in at one stage when children were found playing with
>skeletons. Thousands of people rushed there last week after a local
>daily broke the news of the dungeon's discovery.
>
>    Residents said everyone knew that the house had been used as a
>torture chamber by the army or their local supporters. Cries for help
>could be heard sometimes, Saleem said.

	Now who is this "EVERY ONE", Biharis who lived around that area??
	Sure they heard cries for help and remained helpless against the
	murders some choose to call " freedom fighters".

>
>    The house is in a district inhabited by Urdu-speaking Biharis,
>many of whom supported Pakistan during the war. The Biharis moved to
>East Pakistan when India was partitioned in 1947. Some 280,000 Biharis
>now live in camps in Bangladesh and want to go to Pakistan, having
>refused Bangladesh nationality following the war.

	Now this tells some partial truth. The above news can be interpreted
	as follows:
	Biharis this district. The bengali muderers/bandits saw them
	as easy target so the came over to cleanse the bengali society
	of these non-bengalis....ETHNIC CLEANSING as is going on in
	Bosnia right now with the perpetuaters termed as HEROES by
	belgrad and other ethnic serbs! OR as is going on in the hill
	tracts of Chittagong and Sylhet against the ethnic tribes
	even to this day. Anyways, these bengali bandits lined up the
	local bihari men women and children, took them to this house,
	and brutally massacred these innocent biharis, raped their women
	and left their remains to decay. All in the name of Bengal for
	Bengalis....this is where the Bengali nationalists on this net
	shout stand up and clap to give a standing ovation to these
	so-called heroes....they have been doing that for the last 21
	years without remorse or accoutability.

>
>    Some Biharis still living in the area are reported to be scared
>following the discovery of the basement which has revived old hatreds.
>
	Sure they are afraid. They know what was done to them by the
	Bengali "freedom fighters" in 1971. 

>    The independence anniversary also coincides with a campaign to
>bring to trial alleged collaborators of the Pakistan army, many of
>whom are said to be members of Moslem fundamentalist groups or even in
>ruling party. Among the alleged collaborators is the fundamentalist
>Jamaat-e-Islami leader Golam Azam.
>

	Fine. So how many murders of bengali ethnicity who killed
	innocent biharis and their opponents in the name of "indepence"
	are going to be tried. Kader Siddiqui is one whose attrocities are
	well documented. So are Bengalis calling for his trial as a war
	criminal?????????

Mustafa Syed.

>
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>                                                                          _
>                                                                         / \
> ________________________________________________________________________\_/
>/ \  							                   |
>\_/ 									   |
>| | Saifuddin Ahmed                                                        |
>| | sahmed@occs.cs.oberlin.edu                                             |
>| |________________________________________________________________________/
>\_/
>
>


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