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Bangladesh

Nizami to file review petition today

2016-03-29

[Dhaka Tribune] Condemned war criminal and Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... Ameer Matiur Rahman Nizami will file a petition seeking review of the Appellate Division verdict that upheld his death sentence. "The review petition will be filed today with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against his death sentences, upheld by the apex court, as all preparations have already been completed," Nizami’s son Barrister Nazib Momin was quoted as saying by BSS. The apex court on March 15 released the 153-page judgement after its four judges concerned signed the verdict that upheld the Jamaat chief’s death penalty for war crimes. International Crimes Tribunal issued a death warrant against the war criminal on the same day. There is a provision of filing a review petition within 15 days after releasing the full verdict. Nizami was given the death sentence on October 29, 2014 on four charges and life imprisonment on four other charges. He challenged the verdict at the apex court. On January 6, the Appellate Division upheld the tribunal’s sentence for the al-Badr chief for criminal masterminding the killing of intellectuals and his involvement in two incidents of mass murders of over 500 people in Pabna in 1971. He is the third former minister after Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to get the death penalty for his notorious role during the war.

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Bangladesh

Demand for execution of all war criminals

2015-12-15

[Dhaka Tribune] The nation observed Martyred Intellectuals Day yesterday with the demand that all Razakars and local collaborators who aided the Pakistain occupation army during the Liberation War be hanged as soon as possible. People from all walks of life gathered at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial in the capital's Rayerbazar area, paying tribute to the intellectuals who were systematically picked up and killed by the Pakistain occupation army two days before Bangladesh became victorious in 1971. This year's commemoration was different, as the nation observed Martyred Intellectuals Day for the first time after the execution of a war criminal who was charged with the mass killing of the country's brightest minds during the war. Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, who was also a commander of al-Badr in 1971, was hanged on November 22 for being involved in the heinous crime. President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. paid profound tribute to the martyred intellectuals by placing wreaths at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial in Mirpur. BNP Chairperson the loathesome Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... also paid tribute to the martyred intellectuals by placing wreaths at the memorial in Mirpur. Meanwhile, ...back at the palazzo, Count Guido had escaped from his bonds and overwhelmed his guard using the bludgeon the faithful Filomena had smuggled to him in the loaf of bread... common people as well as eminent political, professional, social, cultural and academic personalities paid their tribute at Rayerbazar, along with the families of the martyred intellectuals. Besides the execution of all Razakars, they also demanded that Bangladesh cut off all ties with Pakistain for supporting the war criminals. Awami League Joint General Secretary Mahbub Ul Alam Hanif said: "We separated from Pakistain and became a sovereign nation in 1971. Pakistain is a failed state; it is meaningless to keep relations with it." The country will be free from shame once all the war criminals are punished and all fundamentalist and fanatic groups are banned, he told news hounds. Members of Prajanma 71, a platform of the children of the martyred intellectuals, observed a minute of silence in memory of the fallen heroes in Rayerbazar before forming a human chain to protest both the national and international conspiracies against the International War Crimes Tribunal. Addressing the protest, Nujhat Chowdhury, daughter of Dr Alim Chowdhury who was killed on December 14, 1971, said: "Mujahid, an al-Badr commander, has been hanged. We are hopeful that the government will do justice and punish the rest of the war criminals too." KM Shafiullah, chairperson of Sector Commanders' Forum, said the 195 officials of Pakistain occupation army who were identified as involved in war crimes must be brought to justice as well. "Pakistain took those 195 army officials with the promise that they would be brought to justice, but it never happened. So, our next step is to make it happen. Pakistain must also apologise to Bangladesh for denying that its army committed genocide here in 1971," said Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan. Members of other political and socio-cultural organizations paid their tribute at the memorials as well.

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Bangladesh

Chowdhury and Mujahid hanged over 1971 war crimes

2015-11-22

Two Bangladesh opposition leaders have been executed for war crimes committed during the 1971 independence struggle against Pakistain. Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid were hanged in Dhaka's central jail. They were convicted of genocide and rape - charges they denied. Chowdhury has been an influential politician - he was elected MP six times. Mujahid was a top leader of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said they were hanged after President Abdul Hamid rejected appeals for clemency by the two men. However, family members have dismissed reports that the men had made any such appeals, which would have also required admissions of guilt. "My father said he did not seek any mercy," Chowdhury's son, Humam Qauder Chowdhury, told AFP news agency, after meeting his father for the last time hours before his execution. "He has always said he's innocent." The Supreme Court upheld their sentences earlier this month. Chowdhury was the most big shot of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party to be sentenced for crimes against humanity. Two years ago, a special war crimes tribunal found him guilty of nine out of 23 charges including genocide, arson and persecuting people on religious and political grounds. The prosecution said that his father's residence in Chittagong was turned into a torture cell during the war. Mujahid was the secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... . He was sentenced to death in July 2013. He was accused of responsibility for the killings of a number of pro-independence Bangladeshi leaders and intellectuals. The tribunal found him guilty of five charges, including abduction and murder. Bangladesh's government says the war crimes trials are necessary to bring murderers to justice. But the opposition says they have been used to persecute them and human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... groups have said the tribunal does not meet international standards.

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Bangladesh

Bangla bloggers fear deadly backlash won’t end soon

2015-11-14

DHAKA: Omi Rahman Pial has changed homes five times in the last three months. He hasn’t seen his young daughter in weeks and is afraid to be seen on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital and home to several grisly killings of secular bloggers like him. “I am a refugee in my own country,” he said. “And under the threat of being killed, nowhere to go. Where should I go? So if you want to see the maximum punishment a blogger could get in Bangladesh, look at me.” Fear is running high following months in which four bloggers and three other people have been killed, allegedly by radicals. Many bloggers have gone into hiding, and some have left the country. Authorities blame the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami, saying they want to destabilize the country ahead of executions, expected late this year, of two influential politicians from the two parties for war crimes. Some of the victims were involved in a movement that has pressed for capital punishment for those politicians and several others for actions during the country’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan. Two of the politicians have been executed. The parties deny involvement in the killings, saying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government is pushing hard-liners to strike back by cracking down on its opponents. Daesh has claimed responsibility, but authorities deny that the Sunni extremist group has any presence in the South Asian country. The blogger attacks have made many fear the rise of radicalism in this Muslim-majority nation known since independence for its secularism. The first strike this year came in February when American-Bangladeshi blogger and writer Avijit Roy was hacked to death as he and his wife walked on the campus of Dhaka University. Then three other secular bloggers have been killed in daylight attacks in Dhaka and outside. Early this fall, two foreigners — an Italian aid worker and a Japanese agriculture researcher — were killed within a week of each other. The Daesh group claimed responsibility, as it did Oct. 31, when assailants attacked two book publishers in their Dhaka offices; one died man died and three others were critically injured. “I am scared. They may kill me anytime,” Pial said in an apartment he shares with another blogger who has also gone into hiding, fearing for his life. “I have not seen my 6-year-old daughter for weeks, my wife is safe for now as she is outside the country with a scholarship. I don’t go outside for days,” Pial said. “It’s a difficult time for us, for the nation. I don’t know where we are heading to.” Pial often appears in television talk shows and stands against radical religious ideologies, war criminals and the Jamaat, which he says should be banned for extremism and its stand against the country’s independence. He views the killings by suspected radicals as part of a “pseudo-war” against the ongoing war-crimes proceedings, which he has advocated for years. Authorities say recent violence including the killings of bloggers and foreigners is aimed at derailing the executions of influential BNP leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid. The Supreme Court has upheld a special tribunal’s verdict for their execution; the defendants’ petitions for a final review of the judgment will be heard Nov. 17. Clemency is unlikely from the country’s figurehead president, as Hasina has said war criminals should get the maximum punishment. Mahbubul Hoque Shakil, a close aide to Hasina, told The Associated Press that the “powerful, strong and moneyed” defendants are trying to derail the process. “And certain foreign governments are with them because they have their interests here. They are trying to use their every bit of their strength,” he said.

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Bangladesh

Govt to challenge Sayedee's sentence

2015-08-24

[Dhaka Tribune] Attorney General Mahbubey Alam yesterday said that the government would move a review petition with the Appellate Division seeking death sentence for convicted war criminal and Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi ...Islamic orator and politician. He was a former Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Bangladesh from 1996 to 2008, and is one of the most prominent leaders of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami... . "The state will file a review petition against the sentence [of Sayeedi] after getting the full judgement," Mahbubey told news hounds at his office. He hoped that the court would overturn the previous verdict and hand down capital punishment. The International Crimes Tribunal 1 had sentenced Sayeedi to death on February 28, 2013 for his complicity in crimes against humanity against the Hindus and freedom fighters in Pirojpur during the 1971 Liberation War. But in the appeal case verdict, the top court on September 17 commuted his punishment to imprisonment until death. The court is yet to release its full verdict. After the appeal case judgement, Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. , several ministers and war trial campaigners had expressed frustration over the sentence. On the other hand, the Jamaat members conducted massive attacks on the law enforcers, ruling party supporters and Hindus in many districts across the country in 2013 in protest against the tribunal verdict killing dozens of people and destroying state properties. Mahbubey, the top law officer of the country, also said that the full verdict in Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid's case would be published soon. The apex court gave its judgement upholding the tribunal's death sentence on June 16. Upon getting the full text of the judgement, the government will start process for executing the death row convict. The war criminal, who had acted as the chief of al-Badr force, can seek a review of the sentence once the full judgement is released. He can also seek presidential mercy admitting his crimes. The full verdict in the case of convicted war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury is also pending with the top court. So far, the government has executed the death sentences of top war criminals and Jamaat leaders Abdul Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman.

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Bangladesh

Bangladesh upholds death sentence of top Islamist

2015-06-17

[HINDUSTANTIMES] Bangladesh's highest court Tuesday upheld the death sentence against a top Islamist leader for war crimes during the country's battle for independence, prompting his opposition party to call a general strike in protest. Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid could now be hanged within months after the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal against the sentence for the murder of scores of intellectuals during the 1971 conflict. The 67-year-old is one of about a dozen leaders of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... , a key opposition group, convicted by a controversial war crimes tribunal set up by the secular government in 2010. The convictions have triggered the country's deadliest violence since independence with some 500 people killed, mainly in festivities between Jamaat activists and police. Security was tight ahead of Tuesday's ruling, with heavily armed police and border guards surrounding the court in Dhaka and patrolling nearby streets. But widespread violence was unlikely following a recent crackdown against the opposition by Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. 's government.

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Bangladesh

Bangladesh Jamaat leaders to be kept in jail indefinitely

2010-08-04

[Arab News] A special tribunal dealing with charges of crimes against humanity against four senior leaders of Bangladesh's largest Islamic party ordered authorities on Monday to keep the accused in jail indefinitely. The charges stem from the nation's 1971 war for independence and alleged atrocities committed by Pakistani soldiers in a failed attempt to keep Bangladesh from breaking away. The Bangladeshi government says the soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated three million people, raped about 200,000 women and forced millions more to flee their homes during the bloody nine-month war. The suspects being held by the tribunal are from the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which sided with Pakistan during the war in which India backed those seeking independence. The suspects face charges such as genocide, murder, rape, torture, looting and arson. The party has said the charges are politically motivated. But so, too, were the genocide, murder, rape, torture, looting and arson that resulted in the deaths of three million human beings. The long-delayed tribunal - which was a campaign promise of Prime Minister Hasina Wajed during elections in 2008 - was finally set up in March. The suspects include Jamaat-e-Islami party chief Matiur Rahman Nizami and his senior party colleagues Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, Abdul Quader Mollah and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman. They were produced before the three-member tribunal during a hearing on their arrests on Monday. Justice Nizamul Huq asked authorities to keep them in jail until further order pending the criminal investigation.

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Bangladesh

JMB man discloses attack details

2010-07-18

[Bangla Daily Star] Detained acting JMB chief Nazmul told interrogators that he and executed JMB military commander Ataur Rahman Sunny were there when JMB men stabbed eminent author Prof Humayun Azad in front of Bangla Academy in February, 2004. Nazmul, who is also known as Bhagne Shahid and Anwar Alam, made the disclosure during remand at the Detective Branch of police office yesterday, a DB official told The Daily Star requesting not to be named. Nazmul told interrogators that as Prof Azad cried for help he detonated a bomb to clear the way for their escape dispersing people coming forward to aid Azad. Sunny had planned the attack and he had led the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh operatives who carried out the attack, he told investigators, adding that he had provided them with the knives. Nazmul told interrogators that they had also issued several death threats over telephone to Azad to stop, what they claimed, his anti-Islamic writings and opinions. He said Azad did not pay heed to their warnings. Asked about the information they received from Nazmul about the JMB operatives who took part in the attack, the DB official refused to give details for the sake of investigation. However, another DB official said JMB operatives Minhaz and Shamim, who is also known as Sado, took part in the attack among others. On February 27, 2004, they swooped on 56-year-old linguist Azad, a professor of Bangla at Dhaka University, as he was trying to catch a rickshaw to go home from the Ekushey Book Fair at Bangla Academy, sources said. Four to five youths, who were shadowing Azad, emerged from the direction of Suhrawardy Udyan and hemmed him, witnesses had told The Daily Star after the attack. As Prof Azad cried for help, a loud blast rocked the area and the attackers got away, they said. Azad died from what an autopsy said was a heart attack in Munich on August 12 that year. Azad was receiving threats from fundamentalists after his book "Pak Saar Jamin Saad Baad" was published in a national Bangla daily's Eid issue. Meanwhile, a top DB official said they put acting JMB chief Nazmul, the banned outfit's North Bengal chief Shafiqul Islam alias Jamai Rafiq and former acting JMB chief Saidur Rahman face-to-face and interrogated them. The official said they also put detained Jamaat leaders face-to-face with detained JMB leaders and interrogated them yesterday. A DB official said Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, Motiur Rahman Nizami and Delwar Hossain Sayedee claimed that they are not war criminals. They said they just supported Pakistan during the war and it was their political right to do so. The detained JMB leaders used to keep regular contact with Jamaat leaders and some Jamaat leaders used to provide financial help to JMB operatives, claimed a DB source, adding that JMB high-ups were also trying to forge a unity with Jamaat. Jamaat and Hizb-ut Tahrir also tried to keep contact with Detained JMB leaders, a DB source said quoting the JMB leaders.

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Bangladesh

Bangladesh detains 200 after Jamaat protest violence

2010-07-06

Bangladesh police said on Monday they had detained 200 activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami for staging violent protests after three top party leaders were arrested on charges ranging from obstructing police to sedition. That was fast. And accomplished without any help from the Rapid Action Battalion, too. Almost like they were expecting it. If they were expecting it then it follows that many/most of the 200 detained have violent headaches right now ... The activists attacked vehicles, public offices and a police station in Chittagong on Sunday when the Jamaat-e-Islami party called for nationwide protests. They were demanding the release of the three leaders -- party chief Moulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, his deputy Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and another key leader Delwar Hossain Saidee -- who were held on police remand last week for interrogation. Protests were also held in other districts, but police moved in to prevent violence, witnesses and police said. Nearly 150 were detained in Chittagong and the rest across the country, police said. Jamaat is a political ally of the opposition Nationalist Party led by former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia, who has demanded their release and asked the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to stop "persecuting" the opposition. Many Bangladeshis accuse Jamaat of collaborating with the Pakistani army during the 1971 war of independence, in which around 3 million people were killed at the hands of the Pakistani army and collaborators during the nine-month war. Things have been awfully interesting in Bangladesh ever since the ISI organized that little troop rebellion.

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Bangladesh

NGOs under scanner

2009-03-20

The Bangladesh government has started scrutinising activities of NGOs approved during the rule of the BNP-led four-party alliance government to see if they have any involvement with funding militant activities. Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith has charged certain NGOs with funding militant outfits and named the former Social Welfare Minister, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, who is also secretary-general of fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, as the possible "culprit." Mr. Muhith told reporters on Wednesday that there were some investments in Bangladesh "that patronise militant activities," but he did not identify them. After the massive countrywide bombings in 2005 carried out by the banned Jamaat'ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, intelligence agencies reported that certain West Asia-based NGOs were funding terrorism in Bangladesh. They recommended banning the Kuwait-based Revival of Islamic Heritage Society and taking action against a number of other West Asian organisations found to have links with Islamist extremists.

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Bangladesh

Committee protests remarks against Liberation War

2007-11-16

Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and South Asian People's Union Against Fundamentalism and Communalism yesterday condemned the audacious remarks against the Liberation War, freedom fighters and constitution by some pro-Jamaat-e-Islami intellectuals. The organisations said pro-Jamaat intellectuals are making such remarks following similar comments by Jamaat leaders Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, Abdul Quader Mollah, Kamruzzaman and Shah Abdul Hannan. In a press release, leaders of the organisations said these people are mainly opposing the demand for trial of war criminals at seminars and roundtables organised in the last few days by Jamaat and its font organisations.

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Bangladesh

Jamaat now denies its anti-liberation role in 1971

2007-10-26

Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh yesterday said they did not work against the Liberation War in 1971 and claimed that there is no war criminal in the country. "In fact anti-liberation forces never even existed," Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid told reporters coming out of the talks with the Election Commission (EC) on electoral reforms. According to newspaper reports, speeches and statements of those accused of war crimes, and the finds of different probes including the People's Enquiry Commission, Mujahid, who was president of East Pakistan Islami Chhatra Shangha and chief of the infamous Al Badr Bahini back in 1971, helped the occupying Pakistan army carry out massacre, looting and rape. Only two days before the war ended, he led the killings of renowned academics, litterateurs, doctors, engineers, journalists and other eminent personalities with a view to leave the nation intellectually crippled. Senior Jamaat leaders Abdus Sobhan, Moulana Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, Abdul Kader Molla and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman who were in the delegation to the EC yesterday have been charged with war crimes. Jamaat Amir Matiur Rahman Nizami was the president of Islami Chhatra Shangha (Islamic Students' Organisation) in 1971. Al-Badr Bahini was set up under his direct supervision. He became the commander-in-chief of the paramilitary force designed to eliminate the freedom fighters, reads the report of the People's Enquiry Commission, a body formed in 1993 with eminent citizens to investigate into the activities of the war criminals and the collaborators. Since the independence Jamaat had been constitutionally banned in Bangladesh till 1976. Asked about the growing demand for declaring the anti-liberation forces and war criminals disqualified from contesting the national elections, the Jamaat secretary general yesterday said, "The constitution does not support the demand since Islam is the state religion and 90 percent of the population are Muslims. Besides, there is no war criminal in the country now." Referring to the charges against them, Mujahid said, "These are all false and ill-motivated." He said after the Liberation War the then government had identified 195 people as war criminals and all of them were members of the Pakistan army. Asked what role his party played during the war, he evaded a direct answer and instead asked the journalists to find it out. "No-one should give a distorted picture of the past," observed Mujahid, also a former minister. Jamaat, which was in the last government as part of the BNP-led four-party alliance, participated in the electoral reform talks amid different political parties calling for the EC not to allow any religion-based political party to register with it. In response to the call, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) ATM Shamsul Huda last month said though the war criminals should have been tried immediately after independence, successive governments did not move to bring them to trial. Earlier on March 27, when some freedom fighters at a tea party demanded that the war criminals be prosecuted, Chief of Army Staff Gen Moeen U Ahmed said he would bring up the issue at meetings with the government high-ups.

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