Hindus ‘conspirators’: Ghulam Azam

Jamaat-e-Islami guru Ghulam Azam had on Aug 6, 1971 termed the Bengali Hindus of occupied Bangladesh ‘conspirators’.

As head of Jamaat’s East Pakistan, Azam had allegedly played an instrumental role in founding the infamous Peace Committee of which he was a senior member.

It was at a meeting of this Peace Committee Azam was addressing at the Kushtia Public Library, during a tour of the country, that he called Sheikh Mujibur Rahman a ‘traitor’.

Monday was the sixth day of closing arguments in Ghulam Azam’s case at the first war crimes tribunal of Bangladesh.

The three-judge International Crimes Tribunal-1, set up to try crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War, indicted Azam for five war crimes charges including incitement, complicity and conspiracy on May 13.

Prosecutor Sultan Mahmud summed up his case against the former Jamaat chief citing mostly newspaper reports. Almost all of Ghulam Azam’s public appearances and speeches were covered by the party mouthpiece Daily Sangram which provides for a basis for the prosecution to substantiate the charges.

During that meeting in Kushtia, Azam is alleged to have ‘also expressed gratitude towards the Pakistan Army for taking the necessary steps for preserving the unity of Pakistan’.

The Jamaat leader’s endorsement of the Pakistani military’s actions, which Azam admitted to have witnessed firsthand in Dhaka amid a curfew on Mar 26, 1971, was evidence of his complicity to the widespread atrocities across Bangladesh during the war.

On Aug 20, at a central Jamaat meeting in its headquarters in Lahore, Azam allegedly offered ‘full support to the decision taken by the Pakistan government to repress the banned Awami League by arms’.

This ‘full support’, as reported by the newspapers of that time, the prosecutor said, only meant that Ghulam Azam was complicit to the repressive measures of criminal nature Pakistani Army and its auxiliary forces perpetrated across Bangladesh.

A few days later on Aug 26, Azam spoke at Peshawar where he called the ‘revolutionaries’ — indicating liberation forces and those supporting them — Mir Zafar, after the man who had betrayed Sirajuddoullah at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The defeat heralded British rule in Bengal and the name Mir Zafar (Mir Zafar Ali Khan) has since become synonymous with treachery.

Sultan Mahmud explained that this was further proof of Azam’s complicity to crimes against humanity.

The prosecutor still has to cover 10 more counts of complicity and one for murder. Ghulam Azam faces 61 counts of war crimes in total.

Jamaat Guru in ICT-1

On Dec 12, 2011, the prosecution brought a 52-point charter of charges against Azam and appealed for his arrest. Later, following the tribunal order, charges were re-arranged and presented to the tribunal on Jan 5.

He was produced before the tribunal on Jan 11 and sent to jail the same day. Since that evening, the 90-year old former Carmichael College professor has been kept at the prison cell of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University for better treatment considering his delicate health.

Ghulam Azam’s indictment hearing began on Feb 15 and the court charged him on May 13.

A former chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, arguably the largest Islamist organisation in the subcontinent, Azam is allegedly among the key people who pioneered anti-liberation efforts in 1971 colluding with the Pakistani military junta of that time.

He is widely perceived to have been among core group of right-wing supporters of the Pakistani Army, who came out strongly in support of a united Pakistan.

Ghulam Azam, then chief of Jamaat, was instrumental in setting up the infamous Peace Committee at the national level. The Razakars, an auxiliary force set up mainly to actively thwart the liberation forces, are said to have been mobilised through the Peace Committees across Bangladesh.

Among the most notorious vigilante militia are the Al Badr, whose membership is said to have been mainly dominated by the Jamaat's student wing called the Islami Chhatra Sangha at that time.

The Al Badr is alleged to have spearheaded execution of the intellectual elites of Bangladesh just days before the victory on Dec 16, 1971.

Azam also spoke in favour of Pakistan to the Middle Eastern countries during the war, according to the prosecution.

He stayed in London for seven years after 1971 and returned to Bangladesh in 1978 during BNP founder Ziaur Rahman's rule. Having led Jamaat for long, Azam retired from active politics in 1999.

His party remains a key ally of the main opposition BNP. Two Jamaat leaders, also behind bars for war crimes charges, have even served as ministers during the BNP's last tenure in government between 2001 and 2006, when Azam's party was part of the ruling coalition.

Azam was indicted on five charges including incitement, conspiracy, planning and complicity.