The name Al-Badr means the full moon and refers to the
Battle of Badr.[3]
History
Organization
Al-Badr was constituted in September 1971 under the auspices of General
Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, then chief of the
Pakistan Army eastern command. Members of Al-Badr were recruited from public schools and
madrasas (religious schools). The unit was used for raids and special operations;[2] the
Pakistan army command initially planned to use locally recruited militias (Al-Badr,
Razakar,
Al-Shams) for policing cities of East Pakistan, and regular army units to defend the border with India. According to Brigadier Abdul Rahman Siddiqi, members of Al-Badr were mainly
Biharis.[4]
After the
surrender of the
Pakistan Army on 16 December 1971, Al-Badr was dissolved together with the Razakar and Al-Shams. Many members were arrested. During the time of president
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, all of the collaborators, including those of Al-Badr were pardoned conditionally.[6]
Al-Badr perpetrated atrocities against civilians during the war of 1971, in particular, the
massacre of intellectuals that occurred in the
Rayer Bazaar area of
Dhaka on 15 December 1971.[7][1]
According to journalist Azadur Rahman Chandan, Al-Badr was experimentally launched in
Jamalpur,
Mymensingh in April 1971 as a voluntary force with
Islami Chhatra Shangha activists as its first recruits to wage war against the nationalist fighters. They were enlisted and trained under the guidance of
Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, the assistant secretary general of Jamaat.[8][additional citation(s) needed]
^
abSisson, Richard; Rose, Leo E. (1991). War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh. University of California Press. p. 165.
ISBN978-0-520-07665-5.
^Hazelhurst, Peter (3 January 1972). "Communist Party revived in Dacca". The Times. p. 4. more corpses have been found floating in a small pond in the Rayabazar area of Dacca where scores of Bengali intellectuals were massacred three weeks ago ... There has been no official count of the number of people killed at Rayabazar. The figure is generally put at about 150 ... Most of the intellectuals were killed on the morning of December 15 by the fanatical Bengali religious group known as Al-Badr.
^Chandan, Azadur Rahman (February 2011) [2009]. একাত্তরের ঘাতক ও দালালরা [The Killers and Collaborators of 71] (in Bengali) (Revised 2nd ed.). Dhaka: Jatiya Sahitya Prakash. pp. 48–54.
^Karlekar, Hiranmay (2005). Bangladesh: The Next Afghanistan?. New Delhi: Sage. p. 152.
ISBN978-0-7619-3401-1.