SQC, MOJAHEED EXECUTION : PM criticises media coverage of families’ reactions

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday criticised the way some private television channels and newspapers covered reactions of the families of hanged war crimes convicts Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed.
While presiding over the weekly cabinet meeting at the Cabinet Division a day after the executions, she said some news media focused on statements and reactions of the war criminals’ families ‘without giving due coverage to the victims’ families, who had lost their near and dear ones in the 1971 Liberation War, according to a minister.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party standing committee member Salauddin and Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general Mojaheed were hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on early Sunday for crimes against humanity committed in the Liberation War.
Hasina, however, opposed an idea of making public the documents of clemency petitions sent by Salauddin and Mojaheed to the president before their executions as a senior minister said that the government could defuse the controversy created by the families of the two over the mercy petitions, said the minister.
The prime minister said the petitions were addressed to the president and so the government should maintain its secrecy, according to the minister.
Law minister Anisul Huq and home minister Asaduzzamnan Khan on Sunday asserted that Salauddin and Mojaheed had petitioned the president to exercise his power under Article 49 of the constitution before their execution.
They said that the families were only trying to confuse people by denying that Salauddin and Mojaheed had sought presidential clemency.
Both the ministers said the petitions meant nothing but seeking presidential clemency.

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