Four decades into the war of independence, Bangladesh has re-initiated a domestic war crimes trial process that contains its own power dynamics, exclusions and silences. In this article, BINA D’COSTA weaves through divergent layers of the complex politicisation of memory by various actors. It provides a brief background of the current impasse, the fractured process and the hierarchical nature of various international discursive interventions delegitimising the trials and considers popular protests in Shahbagh, Dhaka, through which collective remembrance becomes a distinct and disputed social and political practice.