The felonious Al-Badr force led by Jamaat-e-Islami in 1971 War in Bangladesh- I

On the 17th day of Ramadan i.e., on April 30, 2021 falls the majuscule Al-Badr Day and on this day of 1400 years back, the Battle of Badr, the first major battle between the Muslims under the leadership of Prophet Muhammad (PBH) and Quraysh, the most powerful tribe in Makkah happed. The battle ended with a decisive victory for the Muslims. This victory was important in Islamic history because it gave the Muslims a boost in morale. This battle was also significant because it established the Muslims as a formidable force in Arabia.

The importance of this battle in the history of Islam continues into the present day. In fact, several military operations in the last 5 decades or more were named after this battle because it signifies victory. "Operation Badr," for example, was used by the Egyptian army in 1973. Thus, the Battle of Badr is an important event in the history of Islam and continues to have relevance for Muslims everywhere.

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) people claim to be Muslim. But look at their temerity? Snubbing the holy spirits of the Al-Badr War led by Muhammad (PHB) against the mighty Quraish tribe about 1400 years back in Saudi Arabia, these amoral lineaments of history took the holy name of Al-Badr, but constituted a horrendous Al-Badr force only to do all kinds of unholy acts in the soil of Bangladesh in 1971 and bedaubed a symbol of disgrace or infamy to our holy religion-Islam and the holy Prophet Muhammad (PBH). 

Samir Horn says, "You know that the Qu'ran says that if you kill an innocent person, it's as if you've killed all mankind?" But the Pakistani rule for the Bengalis in Bangladesh particularly in 1971 was majorly brutal. The crimes committed by the rulers of Pakistan were undeniably egregious during that time.

It is outrageous that the Al-Badr force volitionally became the paramilitary wing of the Pakistani Army during our 1971 War, but they originally belonged to Jamaat-e-Islami that collaborated as a traitor with the Pakistan Army against the Bengali nationalist movement in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. The chief of the Jamaat, Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami who was hanged for his grievous war crimes in 1971 in the past, headed the Al-Badr organization.

This beastly Nizami was also the all-Pakistan based Commander in Chief of this mass murdering outfit during the 1971 War. This killing squad was banned by the independent government of Bangladesh, but most of its members had fled the country during and immediately after the War of 1971 and many of the mass murderers also went into hiding in the remote hamlets of Bangladesh taking the chance of the war-ravaged country.

Al-Badr means the Battle field of Badr. This holy war of the Prophet Muhammad (PBH) happened 1400 years ago as I said earlier. However, as our glorious 1971 War of Independence unfolded it became obvious that the Al-Badr forces formed by the Pakistani devils emerged as a deviant group demeaning or belittling the holy spirits of original Al-Badr War; and I repeat that this outfit turned into a killing squad using the name of our holy religion- Islam.

It became very clear that they had blueprints marked by deep ill will; and deliberately harmful that was clearly not in alignment with the Prophet's Sunnah or the Prophet's prescription of what constitutes a legal bearing for a moral or spiritual or political goal. Wearing the Muslims gussies up, they brooked with such bestiality towards other humans in Bangladesh that it is very unfathomable to believe as a credo.

On 25 March 1971, after beginning the Bangladesh Liberation War, the Pakistani military forces required military support from the Bengali-speaking supporters as well as the non-Bengali Muhajirs or the Biharis in order to annihilate the independence fighters of Bangladesh, the Mukti Bahini (the Freedom Fighters).

The Al-Badar force was formed to detect these independence fighters and to have guides as well as to act as co-fighters who were familiar with the local terrain. The force was composed of university, college, madrasha students-teachers, mostly Bengali supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim League and Muhajirs/Biharis came from non-Bengali parts of India.

There were three types of Paramilitary forces that the Pakistani military junta formed: i).Al-Badar: The Bangla-speaking Muslim students from Colleges, Universities and Madrashas, who were directly loyal to Jamat-e-islami; ii) Al-Shams: Bengali Madrasah students, teachers and supporters of the so-called Islamic Parties other than Jamat-e-Islami (these smaller parties included Nejam-e-Islami and various factions of the Muslim League); and iii)Razakars:

Some Illiterate and very poor  Bengalis and refugees (who were paid a small amount of money as salary by the Pakistani military junta) who came from the various parts of India during separation of India and Pakistan, and settled in  the-then East Pakistan.During that time, Bangladesh's Al-Badr force was a very organized and trigger-happy Para-military force among those three forces; and they had their own hierarchy of organization and reporting system.

They were assigned a variety of combat and non-combat tasks including: a)taking part in the operations; b)spying against the Freedom Fighters; c) interrogation and brutal tortures; d)working as the guides of the regular Pakistan's Army; e)assassination; f)detecting and killing the Freedom Fighters; and g)providing supply line to front Pakistan's Army. It is absolutely true that Al-Badr is an unequivocal, direct offspring of Jamaat-e-Islami, a killing outfit of Pakistani Army, and it was created to facilitate mass-murder and various war crimes in support of the occupying Pakistani army in Bangladesh in 1971.

On 16 December 1971, Pakistan's Army surrendered. Members of Al-Badr, Al-Shams along with Razakar, and the Shanti Committee also surrendered. The Bangladesh government treated them as traitors, arrested many of them for lawfully prosecution. Many of the Al-Badr members were rightfully brought to justice by the independent government of Bangladesh.

However, a large majority of them escaped any form of legal prosecution and are currently enjoying great prosperity in the country because of deliberate patronising them by the degenerated military rulers like Zia and Ershad and later on by a Full Monty woman politician (at least in appearance), despite widespread disapproval from the general population after the brutal assassination of Bangladesh's Founding Father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and four cardinal national leaders in August 15 and November 3, 1975 respectively.

We may remember that the battle of Badr was the most important among the Islamic battles of Destiny. For the first time, the followers of the new faith were put into a serious test. It is said had victory been the lot of the pagan army while the Islamic forces were still at the beginning of their developments, the faith of Islam could have come to an end.

This battle laid the foundation of the Islamic State and made out of the Muslims a force to be reckoned with by the dwellers of the Arabian Peninsula. But the newfangled Al-Badr force emerged in Bangladesh in 1971 as an anti-Bangladesh paramilitary force which operated in the country against the Bengali nationalist movement during the Bangladesh Liberation War, under the patronage of the Pakistani government with all their ferocities.

Al-Badrs tactics were terrorism and political and civilian killings and they operated under Pakistani military command. Al-Badr force perpetrated atrocities against civilians during the war of 1971, in particular, the massacre of intellectuals in Dhaka that occurred on 14 and 15 December 1971.They then dumped the decomposed bodies in the Rayer Bazar area of Dhaka city.

Bennett's words are pertinent here, "Punishment can do a lot for criminals, and send a message to the rest of society." And so, the leaders of Al-Badr force, Motiur Rahman Nizami, Kader Mollah, Kamaruzzaman, Mir Quasem Ali, and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed were convicted of war crimes and executed lawfully. SQ Chowdhury belonged to former Convention Muslim League of Pakistan and later on belonged to BNP, was convicted of war crimes and executed lawfully. In a nutshell, they were worst criminals of war and their execution was an awesome lesson to oppressors.

Al-Badr leaders, Ashrafuz Zaman Khan and Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin were convicted of war crimes lawfully and they are now on the run in the save havens of UK and USA under the cloak of the so-called human rights and freedom of speech in those advanced and sophisticated countries. The famed freedom fighter Syed Shahidul Haque Mama and the Chief of Mama Bahini during our 1971 War correctly pronounced, "Among infamous traitors of history one might mention these cruel beasts." (To be continued…)


The writer is an independent political analyst who writes
on politics, political and
human-centered figures, current and international affairs.