What happened to Jahanara after the war ended?
Twenty years passed and the war criminals who killed her son and husband did not face justice. The collaborators were given general amnesty in 1973 by the Awami government, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, also known as Bangabandhu, the Father of the Nation. [He is the father of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.] The collaborators were awarded, praised and rehabilitated. Jahanara could not take it so, despite having cancer, she organised the Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee (Committee to exterminate the Killers and Collaborators), and in 1992 she held mock trials of war criminals in Ramna Park in Dhaka. The Awami League was in power then but they could not join hands with her because those elements were still so powerful in our society. So this great lady died without having seen the war criminals being punished. That’s why the recollections of a mother and our war still make me so emotional.
