The government is mulling over a plan to form committees at the local levels for the review of the retracted list of the wartime collaborators of the Pakistani forces, according to AKM Mozammel Huq.
The Liberation War affairs minister spoke about the issue on Thursday, according to a report on bdnews24.com.
When the government withdrew the list on Wednesday following intense criticisms, Liberation War Affairs Secretary SM Arif-Ur-Rahman said a new list will be published after verifications, but he did not say anything about the process.
On Thursday, the secretary said the process to verify the names on the list would be decided upon in an inter-ministerial meeting.
The process will be an easy one if the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs work together, he thinks.
While publishing the list on the eve of the Dec 16 Victory Day, Mozammel had said: "I want to make something clear, we are not preparing any new list. We are only publishing the list of those who were recruited to the Razakar, Al-Badr, Al-Shams and other anti-liberation forces Pakistani government and were named in the old records preserved by the home ministry."
Speaking about verifying the names on the list on Thursday, he said the government was yet to finalise the process and would hold discussions to take a decision.
Asked whether the home ministry will be in the review process, the minister shot back, “Why? It will have to be done locally. Who knows everyone here? But at the local levels, many will know [those on the list]. They will be able to say it correctly. For example, the people under a Thana will know those from their Thana on the list.”
The government may form committees at the local levels for the verification, Mozammel said and added it would hold a meeting to take the final decision.
Secretary Arif also said the process of verification was yet to be set for the list.
“Issues like whether the home ministry will scrutinise its own list or we will do it, or it will be done jointly, or experts’ help will be taken are yet to be finalised. It will be done soon.
“We will have to take a broad decision through an inter-ministerial meeting,” he said.
“It will be easy if the two ministries work together. Because they still have many documents. Earlier, the home ministry dealt with the issues related to the freedom fighters. We will tell the home ministry. This job must be done in an orderly fashion. It can’t be done alone,” he added.
After verification done centrally, the list will be reviewed at the field levels as well, according to Arif.
He said Mozammel had published the list without changing anything after receiving it from the home ministry.
“The minister had kept it with himself. We hadn’t seen it. He had released it in good faith and keeping trust in them. He hadn’t felt any need for reviewing it,” the secretary said.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal had earlier said it had sent the initial lists of the defendants of cases started under the Collaborators Act, but the Liberation War affairs ministry had not checked the notes on withdrawals.
Asked for his comment on Kamal’s claim, Arif said, “It’s correct. But they sent a list of 902 people they identified as Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams.”
“The home ministry has worked hard. They gave us the papers in the size of eight books by forming a committee to check old documents after receiving our minister’s letter. There could be interventions internally. Maybe they were unaware of this. Now the list will be published after careful steps,” he added.
The deputy commissioners did not respond well to call for information necessary for the list, the secretary said. Out of the DCs of 64 districts, only 12 sent information, according to him.
“These can’t be done hastily,” he added.
