Sukharanjan Bali has alleged that he was abducted from the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) premises and held in India’s Dumdum jail for five years after refusing to testify against Jamaat leader Maulana Delawar Hossain Saidi.
The former Supreme Court Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha (S.K. Sinha), along with ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and 30 others, have been named in the complaint filed before the ICT.
Bali made the allegations on Thursday before the Chief Prosecutor of the ICT.
Earlier, Delawar Hossain Saidi was sentenced to death by the ICT during the Awami League government for the murder of Sukharanjan Bali’s brother, Bisha Bali. Upon appeal, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
In addition to Hasina and S.K. Sinha, those accused include Justice Nizamul Haque Nasim, former Law Minister Barrister Shafik Ahmed, former State Minister for Law Kamrul Islam, Justice A.T.M. Fazle Kabir, investigation officer Helal Uddin, former Pirojpur MP A.K.M. Awal, former Chief Prosecutor Syed Haider Ali, former Prosecutor Rana Dasgupta, former heads of investigative agencies Md. Sanaul Haq and Alauddin, as well as various Awami League leaders from the district.
According to Bali, he was summoned in July-August 2010 to Rajlaxmi School in Pirojpur by investigation officer Helal Uddin regarding the 1971 killing of his brother by Pakistani forces. Bali claims that he told the officer the truth about the murder and refused to provide false testimony implicating Saidi.
Bali alleged that Helal Uddin, with the help of local Awami League MP A.K.M. Abdul Awal, Mayor Habibur Rahman Malek, and others, pressured and physically assaulted him at the school to force him to testify falsely.
He said that after attempting to evade pressure, he was eventually contacted by Saidi’s son Masud Saidi, who requested him to testify truthfully. On November 5, 2012, while Bali was heading to the tribunal, he claims his vehicle was intercepted near the tribunal gate, and he was forcibly taken by police and unidentified men in white clothing.
Bali alleges that he was blindfolded, handcuffed, and kept in a dark, windowless room for nearly two months with minimal food and light, where he faced repeated physical and psychological abuse. Later, he was transferred to another room with cameras and lights and pressured to provide false testimony against Saidi, which he refused.
He claims that after continued torture, including electric shocks and offers of bribes in the form of money and property, he was eventually transported to the border area, handed over to the BSF with the support of BGB, and detained in Dumdum Central Jail in India for five years.
