Bangladesh: FFs database work suspended

Dhaka, July 6, 2013 (New Age): The work of building up a database with detailed information of freedom fighters, started by the liberation war ministry in 2011, has been suspended due to an unusually large number of applications. About 300,000 people applied to be enlisted on the database, when the number of gazetted freedom fighters is around 209,000, and many of them did not even apply. The ministry, however, is scrutinising the applications cross-checking it with Mukti Barta (Lal boi), a list of freedom fighters prepared by the Awami League government while in power in 2001, which includes around 154,000 names, said officials involved with the database project. The ministry is currently at a dilemma about what to do with the applications that do not belong to any previous list. ‘We can’t outright reject names not included in the Mukti Barta as the enlistment of freedom fighters is a continuous process. So, we archived the entries of all applications,’ said an official of the ministry, preferring anonymity. The liberation war affairs ministry in 2011 initiated the Tk 4.46 crore database-building project, which will include a full list of freedom fighters, their background details and certificates on parchment paper containing nine security bar codes. The project was scheduled to be completed in June 2014 by two outsourced companies. The database was uploaded in February 2013 on the ministry’s website but was taken off last March when problems were identified. There were mistakes in the data entries and many of names included on the list were not freedom fighters, said an official of the ministry. Japan-Bangladesh Security Printing and papers Ltd, the company contracted to enter the information on the database, completed about three lakh entries. ‘We handed over our work to the ministry last year and now we are making 188,000 certificates,’ said Akramul Hoque, an official of Japan-Bangladesh Security Printing and papers Ltd. Another company, Saffron Corporation Limited, has been hired to scrutinise the information on the database. Saffron’s managing director Nirmal Goshwami, however, refused to talk on the issue. The ministry, meanwhile, has already requested the finance ministry to extend the database project. The liberation war affairs minister AKM Mozammel Huq said after solving the ‘problems’, the project will be resumed soon.