The Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee is a pressure group founded to demand the trial of war criminals from Bangladesh Liberation War. It advocates for secularism in Bangladesh.

History

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

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the L ...

carried out during the

Bangladesh liberation war The Bangladesh Liberation War ( bn, মুক্তিযুদ্ধ, , also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, or simply the Liberation War in Bangladesh) was a revolution and armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali ...

led by

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 ...

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

Jamaat-e-Islami Jamaat-e-Islami ( ur, ) () is an Islamic movement founded in 1941 in British India by the Islamic theologian and socio-political philosopher, Syed Abul Ala Maududi.van der Veer P. and Munshi S. (eds.''Media, War, and Terrorism: Responses f ...

are similar to those of the

British National Party The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK go ...

. The London branch protested against the arrival of

Delwar Hossain Sayeedi Allama Delwar Hossain Sayeedi is a Bangladeshi Islamic scholar, former politician and lecturer, who served as a Member of Parliament representing the Pirojpur-1, Barisal, constituency during 1996–2006. He has been arrested in 2013, after ...

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 Shahriyar Kabir (born 20 November 1950) is a Bangladeshi journalist, filmmaker, human rights activist, and author of more than 70 books focusing on human rights, communism, fundamentalism, history, and the Bangladesh war of independence. He wa ...

, and

Muntasir Mamun Muntasir Mamoon (born 1951) his full name is Muntasir Uddin Khan Mamun, he is a Bangladeshi writer, historian, scholar, secularist, translator, and professor at University of Dhaka. He was awarded Bangla Academy Literary Award and Ekushey Padak b ...

criticised Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia for questioning the number of dead in the Bangladesh Liberation war. 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 mostly refer to Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMNs) from Myanmar who are living in Bangladesh. The Rohingya people have experienced ethnic and religious persecution in Myanmar for decades. Hundreds of th ...

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 ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, a ...

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

Ahmadiyya Ahmadiyya (, ), officially the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community or the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at (AMJ, ar, الجماعة الإسلامية الأحمدية, al-Jamāʿah al-Islāmīyah al-Aḥmadīyah; ur, , translit=Jamā'at Aḥmadiyyah Musl ...

baby from a Muslim graveyard in

Brahmanbaria District Brahmanbaria ( bn, ব্রাহ্মণবাড়িয়া, translit=Brahmôṇbaṛiya) is a district in eastern Bangladesh located in the Chittagong Division. Geographically, it is mostly farmland and is topographically part of the Ga ...

. 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 (born 31 December 1950) is a Bangladesh Awami League politician. He became the Member of Parliament for Dhaka-12 in 2014, being re-elected in 2018. He currently serves as Minister of Home Affairs. Early life Khan was born on ...

, initially supported the report but later changed his position. In June it organized an event criticizing the Digital Security Act and highlighting victims of its use.

Notable members

References

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