Abdul Kader Siddique

Kader Siddique (Bangla: কাদের সিদ্দিকী, born 1948 Tangail) is one of the most controversial figures in the days and events surrounding the seperation of East Pakistan from West Pakistan during the 1971 civil war. Equally hailed as Bongo Bir (Hero of Bengal)on the one hand,and dismissed as a Kutul walla (war criminal) by others, it is a matter of record that Siddique is the only Bengali seperatist militant to be decorated as Bir Uttom (Great Hero) by the government of Bangladesh. He organized and comandeered with an estimated 275,000-strong ramshakle army of militants, ex jail birds, and highly trained indian guerillas under the flag of Mukhti Bahini in the Tangail region against the 15,000 Pakistan Army forces personel present in that region. This army was called Kaderia Bahini (Kader's Army). This group carried out many successful guerrilla operations in Tangail but is most famous for the post victory parade in front of western journalists when lines of pro unity east Pakistani biharis were tied to bamboo trees and than bayoneted and trussed in front of world press cameras in Paltan Maidan,in an ostensible victory parade show for joyhous East Pakistanis post the victory of the Indian army over West Pakistans forces.

Siddique is revered as a brave soldier by some and a fabricator and usurpur by others.He claims to have been wounded at the Makrar battle near Balla village and post victory regularly showed the flesh scars of his bayoneted buttocks to the gathered cameras of the world media.

At the end of the war, on December 16, Siddique's collaborating forces entered Dhaka along with the victorious Indian army signalling the end of the civil war and the annexation of East Pakistan by India who than passed control over immediately to the Bengali people thus heralding the birth of the nation of Bangladesh.

Siddique was rewarded post war with land and houses annexed from murdered West Pakistani occupiers and now is an MP in parliament.

In 2002 Siddique was embroiled in a gay sex scandal where he was accused of sodomising a servant boy at no 9 shantila mansions on the evening of the 21st of June 2002 but all charges were dismissed by the supreme court of Sheikh Hasina's government.

References

[[Category:]Pakistan Civil War 1971]