Bangladesh: Two opposition leaders hanged for 1971 war crimes

A security detail escorted ambulances carrying the men’s bodies to their homes, where their families performed burial rituals.

Leading Bangladeshi newspapers and television networks hailed the executions, with Samakal and Prothom Alo newspapers publishing reports in support of the trials and capital punishments.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that it felt “sorrow” over the execution of two opposition leaders in “brother Bangladesh”, calling for national reconciliation. Although the immediate test will be to rein in protests, neutralising the growing force of the radicals will be a far more daunting task as even some prominent leaders in the Awami League, Hasina’s party, are averse to pursuing the agenda of a secular Bangladesh.

Mujahid, 67, was convicted on charge of being the mastermind of the killing of intellectuals, including teachers and journalists, as well as alleged torture and abduction during Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan.

Bangladesh has strengthened security nationwide after hanging two top opposition leaders for war crimes during the 1971 war to break away from Pakistan.

Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha headed the four-member Appellate Division bench that, on June 16, gave its verdict on Mujahid, who was the former commander of Al-Badr, the militia raised by Pakistan to crush the Bengali struggle for independence.

They were awarded the death sentence along many other leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh by a controversial War Tribunal in 2013. The war criminals enjoyed the right to file review petitions, appeal to the Supreme Court and seek presidential clemency, the officials said. Bangladesh’s government says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed 3 million people and raped 200,000 women during the fighting. Bangaldesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has denied the allegations, but acknowledged that she faced worldwide pressure for trying opposition figures for war crimes.

USA lawmakers and human rights groups say the tribunal proceedings were flawed.

Dhaka – Dhaka has regretted continued “malicious” campaign by Islamabad against the war crimes trial warning that would not augur well for friendly relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan. Mujahid was a top leader of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party.

The Jamaat-e-Islami in East Pakistan, led by Ghulam Azam in 1971, was a branch of Pakistan Jamaat.

The front-page of Sunday’s Daily Star said the pair were “the pitiless, feared faces of genocide” who had “become ministers of the very country they had stabbed and made to bleed”.