SQC, Mojaheed hanged [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

SQC, Mojaheed hanged

Local November 22, 2015

Condemned war crimes convicts Bangladesh Nationalist Party standing committee member Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed were hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on early Sunday.
‘They were hanged at 12:55am on executive orders of the government,’ inspector general of prisons Brigadier General Syed Iftekhar Uddin told New Age.
The prison authorities hanged them after the president, Abdul Hamid, rejected the applications Salauddin and Mojaheed reportedly filed on Saturday seeking presidential clemency as they lost all legal battles against their death sentences on charge of crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 War for Independence.
The families, however, denied that Salauddin and Mojaheed had sought presidential clemency.
They made the claim after they met Salauddin and Mojaheed in jail before they were hanged at 1:00am and 1:00am respectively.
Earlier, condemned war crimes convicts Jamaat leaders Abdul Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman were executed on December 12, 2013 and April 11, 2015 respectively and none of them had sought presidential clemency.
The International Crimes Tribunals have so far sentenced 16 people to death and eight to imprisonment until death on charges of crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 war for independence.
Special security measures were taken in and around the central jail and other parts of the city for the execution of the condemned convicts of crimes against humanity committed in 1971. Members of Border Guard Bangladesh were also deployed in different cities across the country.
Jamaat issued a release calling a countrywide dawn-to-dusk general strike for Monday protesting against Mojaheed’s execution describing it as a ‘planned killing’ and urged people to offer Gayebana Janaza for him.
Law minister Anisul Huq on Saturday claimed that Salauddin and Mojaheed sought presidential clemency and their applications were sent to Bangabhaban on Saturday evening after his ministry’s vetting with prime minister’s clearance.
18 members of Salauddin and Mojaheed’s families last visited them in jail at around 10:00pm for about one hour.
After the visits, sons of both the leaders denied that the two sought clemency. Jamaat, in a statement, also protested at the news of filing mercy plea by Mojaheed and it false and fabricated.
Salauddin’s sons Hummam Quader Chowdhury and Fazlul Quader Chowdhury Faiaz said that their father criticised government ‘falsehood about seeking clemency’ and said them goodbye.
Mojaheed’s son Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mabrur said that his father wanted ‘victory of Islamic movement’ in Bangladesh. ‘My father told us that he did not seek clemency,’ Mabrur told reporters emerging from jail.
Claiming that the trial procedure in Salauddin’s war crimes case was faulty, Salauddin’s family went to meet the president with documents. They, however, were not allowed to see the president.
On completion of all formalities after the execution, the bodies were sent to the village homes of Salauddin at Rawzan in Chittagong, and of Mojaheed in Faridpur for burials, said prison officials.
One of the medical officers present during the executions said that Salauddin, 66, weighted 90 Kilogram while Mojaheed, 67, weighted 90 Kilogram
In July, the Appellate Division upheld the International Crime Tribunal-1 verdict pronounced on October 1, 2013 sentencing Salauddin to death for abetting and participating with Pakistani marauding forces in the killing 57 people at Rawjan in Chittagong in April 1971.
Earlier in June, the apex court upheld the International Crime Tribunal verdict pronounced on July 17, 2013 sentencing Mojaheed to death for abetment, planning and facilitating the killing of 150 intellectuals in the last three days of the Liberation War and burying them in 20 mass graves.
Mojaheed was the commander of the notorious Al-Badr force and the president of Islami Chhatra Sangha, the then student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the court observed.
The four counts that caused Salauddin to walk the gallows included the killing of philanthropist and Kundeshwari Ousadhalaya founder Natun Chandra Singha and 56 others.
On April 13, 1971 morning, marauding occupation troops shot dead Natun at his Gohira house and two minutes later Salauddin also shot him to confirm his death.
The tribunal found Salauddin guilty of leading the killing of 50 people including Chandra Kumar Paul at Unasattur Para on April 13, 1971.
The tribunal also found him guilty of leading, facilitating and abetting marauding troops in the killing Nepal Chandra Dhar, Monendra Lal Dhar, Opendra Lal Dhar and Anil Baran Dhar at Banikpara in Sultanganj on early April 13, 1971.
It also found his complicity in the abduction and murders of Chittagong Awami League leader Sheikh Mozaffar Ahmed and his son Sheikh Alamgir by the occupation troops at Khagrachari army camp on April 17, 1971.
The Appellate Division upheld his sentence of 20 year in jail on two charges of abetting marauding troops in killing Poncha Bala Sharma, Sunil Sharma, Joti Lal Sharma, Dulal Sharma and Makhon Lal Sharma at Maddhya Gohira Hindu Para on April 13, 1971 and 32 others at Jagatmollopara four hours later on the same day.
Salauddin’s sentence for five years in jail were had also upheld on two counts for abduction and torture of local journalist Nizamuddin Ahmed, radio singer Syed Wahidul
Alam and student Salehuddin.
Salauddin’s lawyers argued that that Salauddin had left for the then West Pakistan on March 29, 1971 and returned to Bangladesh in April 1974 and in between he was in London.
On November 16, the lawyers for the first time submitted to the Appellate Division a Bachelor of Art certificate issued on May 22, 2012 by the Punjab University stating that Salauddin had obtained second class in political science examination held in August 1971.
The court had, however, termed the certificate ‘forged’ and it was issued to confuse the court’s decision. The certificate was not authenticated by the Bangladesh High Commission in Pakistan.
He joined politics in the latter half of the 1970s. He was elected lawmaker for five times from Muslim League, Jatiya Party, National Democratic Party and BNP between 1979 and 2008.
The Appellate Division upheld the death sentence of Mojaheed for abetment, planning and facilitating the killing of intellectuals and burying them in 20 mass graves.
The apex court verdict, however, had sentenced him to life term reducing his death sentence handed by the tribunal for ordering killing Hindus at Bakchar village in Faridpur.
Mojaheed was acquitted of the charge of abduction and killing of journalist Serajuddin Hossain on December 10, 1971. The tribunal had sentenced him to death on the charge.
The apex court upheld one out of three death sentences handed to Mojaheed by the tribunal.
The apex court upheld his life term for ordering killing of several Bengali civilians detained at the old MP Hostel at Nakhalpara, which was used by the Pakistan occupation army as its camp during the Liberation War.
The apex court also upheld Mojaheed’s
five-year jail term for confining and torturing farmer Ranjit Kumar Nath at army camp at Faridpur Circuit House.
Mojaheed’s lawyers had raised the question how could it be possible on the part of civilian organisation like Islami Chhatra Sangha to lead paramilitary Al-Badr force that were under the occupation Pakistan Army.
Lawyers had also raised the question how a 21-year-old law student of Dhaka University could plan and abet the killings of the intellectuals as the chief of the Al-Badr force.