The Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee is a pressure group founded to demand the trial of war criminals from the

Bangladesh War of Independence The Bangladesh Liberation War (, ), also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, was an War, armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali nationalism, Bengali nationalist and self-determination movement in East Pakistan, which res ...

. It advocates for

secularism Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on naturalistic considerations, uninvolved with religion. It is most commonly thought of as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state and may be broadened ...

in Bangladesh.

History

The Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee was founded on 19 January 1992 by 101 Bangladeshi activists to seek justice for the

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

carried out during the

. Operating in Bangladesh and Britain, they claim the policies of the

Jamaat-e-Islami Jamaat-e-Islami is an Islamist fundamentalist movement founded in 1941 in British India by the Islamist author and theorist Syed Abul Ala Maududi, who was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. It is considered one of the most influential Isla ...

are similar to those of the

British National Party The British National Party (BNP) is a Far-right politics, far-right, British fascism, fascist list of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and is led by Adam ...

. The London branch protested against the arrival of

Delwar Hossain Sayeedi Delwar Hossain Sayeedi (2 February 1940 – 14 August 2023), widely known as Allama Sayeedi, was a Bangladeshi Islamic leader, politician, scholar and public speaker who served as a Member of Parliament representing Pirojpur-1 constituency fro ...

at a Mosque in East London and demanded his British visa be revoked. In 2000, the committee's leaders established the secular heritage group Swadhinata Trust to raise youth awareness of, and pride in, Bengali history and culture. In 2015, leaders of the committee, Justice Mohammad Gholam Rabbani,

Shahriar Kabir Shahriar Kabir (; born 20 November 1950) is a Bangladeshi journalist, filmmaker, human rights activist, war crimes researcher and author of more than 70 books focusing on human rights, communalism, fundamentalism, history, and the Bangladesh ...

, and Muntasir Mamun criticised Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia for questioning the number of dead in the

. Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee in 2016 asked the government to make denial of Bangladesh genocide a crime. It established a European chapter with Tarun Kanti Chowdhury as its president. Shariar Kabir was elected president and Kazi Mukul was elected general secretary of the committee in 2017. Justice Mohammad Golam Rabbani was elected president of the 31 member advisory board. The general executive board had 61 members. In 2020, the president of the committee, Shahriar Kabir, asked UN Human Rights Commission to resettle the

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals from Rakhine State who are living in Bangladesh. The Rohingya people have experienced ethnic and religious persecution in Myanmar for decades. Hundreds of thousands have fle ...

to a third country. Describing them as victims of genocide it collected the testimonies of 10 thousand

Rohingya The Rohingya people (; ; ) are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who predominantly follow Islam from Rakhine State, Myanmar. Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an estimated 1.4 million Ro ...

refugees. It criticized Muslim extremists who dug out the body of a

Ahmadiyya Ahmadiyya, officially the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at (AMJ), is an Islamic messianic movement originating in British India in the late 19th century. It was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), who said he had been divinely appointed a ...

baby from a Muslim graveyard in

Brahmanbaria District Brahmanbaria District () is a district in eastern Bangladesh located in the Chittagong Division. Geographically, it is mostly farmland and is topographically part of the Gangetic Plain. It is bounded by the districts of Kishoreganj District, Kish ...

. In April 2022, the committee called for the release of a Hindu college teacher detained for "insulting" Islam describing the charges as a conspiracy by religious extremists. It called for a judicial committee to investigate the incident. The committee created People's Inquiry Commission on Fundamentalist and Communal Violence (Gono Commission) with the Parliamentary Caucus on Indigenous and Minorities to investigate religious violence and published a white paper which identified 116 Islamic scholars as money launderers and financiers of terrorism. In response, the Islamic Cultural Forum Bangladesh asked the government to investigate the wealth of Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee members. The

Minister of Home Affairs An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

Asaduzzaman Khan Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal (born 31 December 1950) is a Bangladeshi fugitive, at large since 5 August 2024, a member of the Awami League and one of the key perpetrators of the July massacre orchestrated and executed by Sheikh Hasina's toppled regi ...

, initially supported the report but later changed his position. In June, it organized an event criticizing the

Digital Security Act The Digital Security Act, 2018, was a digital security law in Bangladesh. This act was passed with the aim of preventing the spread of racism, sectarianism, extremism, terrorist propaganda, and hatred against religious or ethnic minorities throug ...

and highlighting victims of its use.

Notable members

Jahanara Imam Jahanara Imam (3 May 1929 – 26 June 1994) was a Bangladeshi writer and political activist. She is known for her efforts to bring those accused of committing war crimes in the Bangladesh Liberation War to trial. She has been called "Shaheed Jan ...

References

{{reflist Aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War 1992 establishments in Bangladesh Organisations based in Dhaka