Little Background of Al-Badar and Al-Shams

The Al-Badr

The Al-Badr was the paramilitary wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) that earned infamy for its collaboration with the Pakistan Army against the Bengali nationalist movement in the Bangladesh Liberation War. The group is blamed for organising the mass killings of Bengali civilians, religious and ethnic minorities. The group is identified as one of the leading perpetrators of the 1971 killing of Bengali intellectuals. The present chief of the Jamaat, Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami headed the Al-Badr organisation as the all-Pakistan Commander in Chief during the war. The group was banned by the independent government of Bangladesh, but most of its members had fled the country during and after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which led to Bangladesh's independence.

On 25 March 1971, after beginning the Bangladesh Liberation War, Pakistani military forces required military support from Bengali supporters who still wanted to live with Pakistan, or did not like Indian interaction in the movement; as well as the non-Bengali muhajirs in order to abolish the independence fighters of Bangladesh, the Mukti Bahini, Hemayet Bahini and Kaderiya Bahini. The Al Badar were formed to detect these independence fighters and to have guides as well as co-fighters who were familiar with the local terrain.

The force was composed of madrasa students-teachers, Bengali supporters of Muslim League and Jamaat E Islami, and muhajirs coming from non-Bengali part of India.

There were three type of Paramilitary forces Pakistan formed,

1. Razakars: refuges who came from other parts of India during separation of India and Pakistan, and setteled in East PAkistan.
2. Al-Badar: Bengali Muslim Students from Colleges, universities and madrasah, who were loyal to Jamat-e-islami.
3. Al-Shams: Bengali Madrasah Students, teachers & supporters of islamic parties other than Jamat-E-Islami (these smaller parties included Nejam-e-Islami and various factions of Muslim League).

Al-Badar was very organized para military force among those three forces, they had their own hirarchy of organization & reporting system.

The Al-Shams

The Al-Shams was a paramilitary wing of several Islamist parties in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), that with the Pakistan Army and the Al-Badr, is held responsible for conducting a mass killing campaign against Bengali nationalists, civilians, religious and ethnic minorities in the Bangladesh Liberation War. The group was banned by the independent government of Bangladesh, but most of its members had fled the country during and after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which led to Bangladesh's independence.

Very little is known about the structure and composition of the group. Newspaper coverage from that period indicates that it was an organ of the razakar para-military force. Jamaat-e-Islami was the largest Islamic party in Pakistan at that time. It seems that other Islamic factions, including Nezam-e-Islami and Muslim League, established the Al-Shams (meaning "the Sun"), as a response to Jamaat-e-Islami's strong influence on the military junta. Jamaat's paramilitary, Al-Badr, was a close ally of the occupation army, and Al-Shams wanted to compete for that status.

Tasks

The Al Badar were assigned a variety of combat and non-combat tasks including:

· Taking part in the operations
· Spying against Muktibahini
· Interrogation
· Working as the guides of the regular army
· Assassination
· Detecting and killing Mukti Bahni Soildiers
· Providing supply line to front army