A Facebook page endorsed by a British advocate who actively advocated for impunity of Bangladesh’s notorious war criminal from Jamaat-e-Islami found actively orchestrating false account of torture targeting former BUET students with questionable motive and one sided account.
Goes by the name Socchar, the page, operated from US, was inaugurated by Michael Polak hired by family of Mir Quasem Ali who earlier struck a million dollar deal with top lobbyists firms in US to shore up global support exploiting human rights ground to ensure impunity for war criminals.
In 1971, Quasem was general secretary of Islami Chhatra Sangha, the then student wing of Jamaat, and for war crimes earned notoriety of running a death factory in Chittagong.
When the student body re-emerged as Islami Chhatra Shibir in 1977, he became its founding president.
What rights activists described as faulty account, the target of the page has been those former BUET students including Tonmoy Ahmed who was reportedly hacked brutally by student arm of the Jamaat back in 2013.
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A U.S. based defence think tank IHS Jane's Global Terrorism & Insurgency Attack Index 2013 put Shibir as the third most active non-state armed group in the world.
Two posts from the page appeared recently that coincided with a series of email campaign launched by globally categorised as extremist outfit Hizbut Taharir targeting students to join crusade against westerners and abandon all western values. Jamaat’s student outfit Shibir and the social media mouthpiece Basherkella also found echoing the tones of Hizbut over BUET.
Pointing out errors on the posts, Tonmoy, who now acts as coordinator in Awami League web team, put up a post on his facebook.
“How can a student be dragged down from exam hall and that too in presence of teachers and students without any media reports. Moreover found the flimsy allegations are levelled based on accounts of a former shibir leader who was involved in plotting the assassination attempt against me," wondered Tonmoy.
Recalling a similar pattern of baseless vilification months prior to attack on Dwip and him, he added “Before attacks, pages affiliated with Shibir including Basherkella ran a barrage of lies slapped on us including branding us “enemies of Islam.”
According to media reports, Tonmoy during his stint on BUET exposed a network of Shibir operating secretly to exploit general students.
Throughout 2013, during the war crimes trial, Jamaat and its affiliated bodies Shibir alongside other likeminded outfits orchestrated a deadly spell of violence including firebombing of buses, targeted killing and communal attacks to stop the trial process.
Back then, in two separate attacks two BUET students who were leaders of Bangladesh Student League BUET unit and went vocal over war crimes trial were stabbed brutally with one killed and another survived reportedly in machete attacks by Shibir activists as both of them were involved in creating awareness against these fundamentalist groups.
Ranjon Karmaker, a rights activist who has worked with Amnesty International, found the sudden and selective spread of such claim “a purposeful work with intent of spreading disinformation, solely focused with the agenda to serve the purpose of Jamaat’s student outfit.
Taking a dig at recommendation placed by the page to take legal action, he added “while there is no veracity of the claim, and two more gruesome attack on buet students is absent but the vigor for legal action is deplorable and reflects a complete lack of objectivity.”
Expressing alarm over the appearance of Polak at the inauguration of the page, Ranjan added “Unless involvement of Jamaat, Pollack would not have attended the inaugural. Pollak advocated for impunity of war criminals.
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Back then, a global campaign was launched by the group of advocates including Pollak to save those infamous culprits who orchestrated one of the worst genocides in recent history.
The nexus of Jamaat behind running the page to vilify former BUET students who were anti war crimes campaigners is evident”
In association with another Jamaat hired lawyear Toby Cadman, Polak was found issuing joint statements undermining war crimes and went on an overdrive to present their clients—dreaded war criminals—as victims.
In reality the trial has been described as watershed moment by hundreds of thousands of people including war heroes and families of martyred heroes.