Bangladesh is on high alert ahead of the possible executions of two influential opposition leaders who were convicted of committing war crimes during the country’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971.
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Mujahid, 67, of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, and Chowdhury, 66, were hanged at 12.55am at Dhaka central jail after president Abdul Hamid rejected their appeals late on Saturday for clemency.
“I’ve waited for this day for a long 44 years”, said Shawan Mahmud, daughter of top musician Altaf Mahmud, who was killed during the war.
The hangings took place just hours after the country’s President rejected their mercy pleas, removing the last legal option against their executions.
On Wednesday, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha dismissed a petition review filed by Mojaheed and Chowdhury requesting the court to overturn its earlier decisions upholding the death penalty originally imposed by the global Crimes Tribunal.
Family members of both men met them hours before the death sentences were carried out.
Security has been beefed up at all sensitive points in the capital, and across the country especially in potential trouble spots like Faridpur and Chittagong to avoid any untoward incident following their execution.
A total of 18 people have been convicted but only two had been sent to the gallows before Mujahid and Chowdhury were hanged at Dhaka’s Central Prison shortly before 1 a.m.
Mujahid was convicted of five charges, including torture and murder.
The Border Guard Bangladesh paramilitary pressure has been deployed throughout the nation after calls for a common strike and protests.
They were awarded the death sentence along many other leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh by a controversial War Tribunal in 2013.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina opened an inquiry in 2010 into abuses committed during the war that Islamists and Khaleda’s party have denounced as part of a politically motivated campaign to weaken the opposition.
Mujahid was buried at the premises of Ideal Cadet Madrasa – run by local Jammat activists – following a funeral prayer attended by family members and Jamaat activists at his ancestral home in Poshchim Khabashpur in Faridpur district. He is the second most senior member of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami.
USA lawmakers – overseeing foreign policy – described the war crimes tribunal as very flawed and a means of political retribution.
News of the executions comes as Bangladesh has been reeling under a string of terror attacks, beginning with the killing of four secular bloggers and a publisher this year by a Islamic fundamentalist group inspired by the writings of al-Qaeda.
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In spite of these doubts, however, the trial is being seen as significant step in Bangladesh’s politics.
