Lt Gen (Retd) M Harun-ur-Rashid, Former Chief of the Army : Our country’s politics are largely to blame for the delay in prepare formulating an accurate Freedom Fighters list. They do politics with this – I want to put my man into the list while you want to put yours. There is no one to verify who is a genuine freedom fighter. However, it is not impossible to make an accurate list. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
To make a legitimate list, the duty has to be given to legitimate people. There will always be doubt if the list is formulated outside this condition. Suppose the responsibility of verifying the list was given to the Upazilla Nirbahi Officer (UNO), but that person himself was born after 1980. Then how can that he verify the list? Does he or she even know the name of any battlefield? Then who shall be responsible for verifying the freedom fighters’ list? The people who are given the duty, do they have the knowledge and experience to do so? Even 47 years after Bangladesh’s independence, we have failed to formulate an accurate, legitimate list– all because of our politics. What can we call this other than failure?
A freedom fighter, who himself participated in the Liberation War, would know best who would go on the list. Therefore, a freedom fighter is the appropriate person to verify the freedom fighters list. Do we have the initiative to do that?
Based on an interview by Ashiq Rahman, translated by Abrar Hussain