Nizami’s execution couldn’t come at a worse time.
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“Dhaka’s civil surgeon then declared him dead”, said additional police commissioner Sheikh Maruf Hassan, adding that an ambulance to be escorted by police auto would carry Nizami’s body to his village home in northwestern Sathia for burial. Such calls for protests usually get no major response from citizens.
Dhaka: Bangladesh late Tuesday executed a top Islamist leader for crimes committed during the war of independence from Pakistan in 1971, the law minister said, a punishment that risked provoking an angry reaction from his supporters.
“He (Nizami) will now be asked whether he would seek mercy to the president”.
The Supreme Court’s full verdict that scrapped Nizami’s review petition against death reached the jail last night.
The tribunal has convicted Nizami and about a dozen other opposition leaders of war crimes.
Since last month an atheist student, two gay rights activists, a liberal professor, a Hindu tailor who allegedly made derogatory comments against Islam’s Prophet and a Sufi Muslim leader have been hacked to death in Bangladesh.
According to prosecutors, Nizami was responsible for establishing the pro-Pakistani al-Badr militia back in 1971, which allegedly claimed the lives of top writers, physicians and journalists in a war that, according to the government figures, killed up to three million people. Jamaat’s previous such strike calls protesting the trial of their senior leaders for war crimes have also went largely unheeded.
Zakaria said that it was decided in the 1974 tripartite agreement that Bangladeshi government can not carry out prosecutions based on vengeance and added that the government needs to comply with the agreement.
In an earlier statement the Foreign Ministry stated that Pakistan was following the reaction of the worldwide community and human rights organisations to the “controversial trials in Bangladesh” related to events of 1971. “The execution is also unfortunate for the people of Bangladesh who had elected Mr. Nizami as their representative in the Parliament”, read the statement.
The U.S. has voiced concerns regarding the execution of a Bangladeshi Islamist convicted of crimes committed during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence.
Abim urges the government of Malaysia to express its firm stand by condemning this tragedy which is battering human rights and democracy in Bangladesh.
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After the family left around 9.30 Nizami was allowed to take a shower followed by prayers. Nizami served as agriculture and industries minister in former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s 2001-2006 cabinet.
