Involvement in Massacres of Prisoners of War
According to a report in The Times, Siddiqui's guerillas 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 civilised 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 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'.
Siddiqui was never tried for these crimes.
Read more about this topic: Kader Siddique
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