Delowar Hossain Sayeedi sentenced to Death

The 73 year old Jamaat-e-Islami nayeb-e-ameer Delowar Hossain Sayeedi was found guilty of murder, abduction, confinement, torture, rape, persecution and abatement of torture, looting, forceful religious conversions and setting homes ablaze in rural areas of southern district of Bangladesh namely, Pirojpur during the Liberation War.[1]



[1] http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=270923







Charge-1:
 Killing of 20 People:
Delowar Hossain Sayeedi sentenced to Death
On May 4, 1971, Delawar Hossain Sayedee as a member of Peace (Shanti) Committee carried secret information to the Pakistan army about a gathering of a group of people behind the Madhya Masimpur bus-stand under Pirojpur Sadar and took the army to the spot. The army killed 20 unnamed people by firing.

Held: Not Guilty/ Acquitted

Charge-2:
Killing 13 Hindu People:
On May 4, 1971, Sayedee along with his accomplices accompanied by the Pakistan army looted belongings of members of the Hindu community living in Masimpur Hindu Para under Pirojpur Sadar. They also set the houses of Hindus alight and opened fire on the scared people, who started fleeing the scene, killing 13 people.

Held: Not Guilty/ Acquitted

Charge-3:

On May 4, 1971, Sayedee led a team of the Pakistan army to Masimpur Hindu Para, where the team looted goods from the houses of two members of the Hindu community -- Monindra Nath Mistri and Suresh Chandra Mondol -- and destroyed their houses by setting them on fire. Sayedee also directly took part in the large-scale destruction by setting fire to the roadside houses of villages Kalibari, Masimpur, Palpara, Sikarpur, Razarhat, Kukarpara, Dumur Tola, Kalamtola, Nawabpur, Alamkuthi, Dhukigathi, Parerha and Chinrakhali.

Held: Not Guilty/ Acquitted

Charge-4:
On May 4, 1971, Sayedee and his accomplices, accompanied by the Pakistani army looted the houses of members of the Hindu community and opened fire indiscriminately on them in front of Dhopa Bari and behind the LGED Building in Pirojpur, leaving four persons killed.

Held: Not Guilty/ Acquitted

Charge-5:
Sayedee declared publicly to arrest Saif Mizanur Rahman, then deputy magistrate of Pirojpur Sub-division, when the magistrate organised a Sarbo Dalio Sangram Parishad to inspire people to join the Liberation War. On May 5, 1971, Sayedee along with his associate Monnaf (now deceased), a member of Peace (Shanti) Committee, accompanied by the Pakistan army picked up Saif from the hospital where he was hiding and took him to the bank of the Baleshwar river. On the same date and time, Foyezur Rahman Ahmed, sub-divisional police officer, and Abdur Razzak (SDO in charge of Pirojpur), were also arrested from their workplaces and taken to the river bank. Sayedee as a member of the killer squad was present there and all three government officials were gunned down. Their bodies were thrown into the river Baleshwar. Sayedee directly participated and abetted in the acts of abduction and killing of those three officers.

Held: Not Guilty/ Acquitted

A Comparative Study on Women’s Right in Bangladesh under Hindu and Muslim Personal Laws



Introduction
     
The term women's rights refer to freedom and entitlements of women and girls of all ages. These rights may or may not be institutionalized, ignored or suppressed by law, local custom, and behavior in a particular society. These liberties are grouped together and differentiated from broader notions of human rights because they often differ from the freedoms inherently possessed by or recognized for men and boys, and because activists for this issue claim an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women and girls.[1]                                                                                         Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to, the right: to bodily integrity and autonomy; to vote(suffrage); to hold public office; to work; to fair wages or equal pay; to own property; to education; to serve in the military or be conscripted; to enter into legal contracts; and to have marital, parental and religious rights. Women and their supporters have campaigned and in some places continue to campaign for the same rights as men.[2]                                                         All family laws- Hindu, Muslim, Parsee, Sikh, Jain and Christian personal laws-have certain common features. All of them recognize the man as the head of the household, they sanction patrilineage and patrilocality, they treat women as men’s property and consider the father to be the natural guardian and they perpetuate double standards in sexual morality and property rights. It is common knowledge among those reasonably acquainted with law that women are greatly deprived of their rights within the laws that govern crucial aspects of the man woman relationship: marriage and divorce, custody of children and guardianship rights, alimony and maintenance for divorced women as well as property rights. The question of women has acquired great importance throughout the world today among all communities. This is for obvious reasons. For centuries, women have been in total subjugation in male-dominated patriarchal societies. It has been a “natural law” to regard women as the inferior sex and for them to submit to male authority for the smooth functioning of society in its day to day progress.

The women in Bangladesh have to deal with little to no rights. Women’s rights are definitely an issue in Bangladesh it is starting to become better but yet at a very slow speed. Many men do not agree with women acquiring equal rights as men because of religious reasons. Some connections to women’s rights matter in Bangladesh are caused from education to religion to legal issues.[3]                                                               Women’s rights in Bangladesh have been an issue for decades. One of the main reasons for this problem is the religion of the country. Now the government is starting to put rules in order to protect and grant women more rights.  As of today there are three laws that are set in place for women, Anti-Dowry Prohibition Act of 1980, Cruelty of Women Law of 1983 and the Women and Children Repression Act of 2000.² These laws have helped women out, but they aren’t strongly enforced, therefore, there are still many issues that aren’t taken care of. The main reason for why these rules are not being strongly enforced is because of religious conflicts. Muslims follow a certain guide line of rules which states that women aren’t to have equal rights as men. Men have made protest against the government for making those laws; they don’t think it’s right that women should be allowed to have the same rights as the men. Men say that some of the policies that are being made are against the Quran and that they are against the teachings of the Quran. The Quran is a Holly and divine text that the Muslims follow. The scenarios are almost same in Hindu community. The laws relating to women’s right are believed to be oriented from Holly Scriptures which can not be altered or modified for the religious sentiment that does not allow the radical changes in customs and rules which have been prevailing for hundreds of years. It is difficult for the government to set any clear and enforced law.[4] The rights for women in Bangladesh are becoming a big issue that is slowly getting better, but there are still a lot of incidents where women are suffering.



Law relating to women’s right

The Bangladesh Constitution declares equal rights for men and women in all spheres of public life.[5] The word 'public' seems to be a major clue to solving this riddle. It is only in the spheres of state and public life that equality is guaranteed through the Constitution. This means that in the private or personal sphere women are pretty much on their own. So even if her husband for whatever reason continuously tortures a woman, until she is killed, the state is unlikely to intervene, as it is we say, too gentlemanly to invade the privacy of the individual. The result is that women continue to be treated as inferior human beings by their husbands and by a society that tends to victimize victims instead of helping them.

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