Kader Siddiqui

Abdul Kader Siddique (Bengali: আবদুল কাদের সিদ্দিকী, born 1948 in Tangail) often hailed as Bagha (Tiger) Kader or Bongo Bir (Hero of Bengal) is one of the most famous fighters and organizers of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Siddiqui has to be decorated as Bir Uttom by the government of Bangladesh. He organized and fought with an estimated 10,000-strong guerrilla force in the Tangail region against the Pakistan Army. This army was called Kaderia Bahini (Kader's Army). At the end of the war, on December 16, Siddique's forces entered Dhaka along with the Indian forces, signalling the end of the war.

According to a report in The Times, Siddiqui and his guerrillas beat up and subsequently bayoneted and shot to death a group of prisoners (who they claimed were Razakars) after a rally held near Dhaka Stadium on December 19, at which Siddiqui himself gave an hour-long speech. The prisoners were murdered after performing Islamic prayers together with their captors. According to the same source, shortly before murdering them, the Mukti Bahini soldiers promised the prisoners 'a fair trial, as in any civilized country'.

Abdul Kader Siddiqui personally bayoneted three prisoners to death and the entire incident was filmed by foreign film crews whom Siddiqui invited to witness the spectacle. Siddiqui was subsequently arrested by the Indian Army.

Siddiqui discussed his involvement in the murders in an interview with Yasmin Saikia, the author of Women, War and Making Bangladesh: Remembering 1971. After describing an event in which Siddiqui shot a Mukti Bahini soldier for stealing a shawl from a Bengali civilian, Saikia states, referring to the Dhaka stadium incident, that 'at the time he did not think of his act as a crime against humanity, being swayed by the Bengali public sentiment for revenge. Today he knows that both the acts - killing a younger soldier for a petty theft and killing the Biharis (Mohajirs) for being different from the Bengalis - were public acts of violence disguised under the label of national morale to establish the power of the Bengalis and claim victory, but they were violent acts, nonetheless, and he is pained by his past'.

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Wikipedia