TDS Desk:

Sukharanjan Bali, a witness in the 2011 war crimes case against Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee, on Thursday filed a complaint with the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) to sue fallen Sheikh Hasina on charges of ordering his enforced disappearance.

Thirty-one others were accused in the complaint, including former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, former ICT judge Nizamul Haque Nasim, and former law minister Shafique Ahmed, said Bali’s lawyer Parvez Hossain.

On 5 November 2012, the Hindu man was allegedly picked up by plainclothes policemen from outside the ICT premises as he was set to shift sides and testify in favour of Sayedee.

Bali was kept in secret detention centres for more than two-and-a-half months, before being transported across the border into India, as he had refused to give false statements against Sayedee, he told reporters on the ICT premises on Thursday.

Bali was originally a witness of the then Awami League regime, and was pressurised to testify that Sayedee was involved in the killing of Bali’s brother in the Liberation War of 1971. However, he refused to follow the orders from security agencies.

After he was abducted, unidentified men repeatedly asked him to testify against Sayedee, offering him huge bribes. Ultimately, they resorted to torturing Bali physically and mentally, he alleged.

Following the abduction, Human Rights Watch issued a statement condemning the crime.

“The apparent abduction of a witness in a trial at the ICT is a cause for serious concern about the conduct of the prosecution, judges and government,” said a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch.