Mir Quasem's corpse being taken to Manikganj for burial

Three ambulances, one of which is believed to be carrying the remains of Mir Quasem Ali, have left Kashimpur Central Jail in Gazipur after the hanging of the Jamaat-e-Islami leader for war crimes.

After the execution of the death sentence at 10:30pm on Saturday, Senior Superintendent of Jail Prashanta Kumar Banik told reporters that the body would be sent to Manikganj. 

The ambulances followed by a Fire Service car left the jail some two hours later.

The three ambulances entered the jail around 9pm after Mir Quasem's relatives had met him for the last time.

Six vehicles of RAB and police and three other cars were escorting them when they left the jail premises.

Gazipur Superintendent of Police Harun-or-Rashid said before the execution that police would provide security for the body until it reaches the destination.

Mir Quasem's relatives have already reached Manikganj's Chala village to prepare for the burial.

Police took position at the burial site and did not let outsiders to enter the village.

Born in Manikganj in 1952, Mir Quasem was raised in Chittagong.

He lost his ancestral house at Munshidangi village to river erosion and bought a piece of land in Chala village.

Son of a fourth-class railways employee, Mir Quasem had gradually left the mark of his shrewdness on both politics and finance as he turned the Jamaat’s financial backbone after becoming a key player in the party’s top brass.

He became the founding president of the Islami Chhatra Shibir, a rechristened Islami Chhatra Sangha, on Feb 6, 1977, two years after Gen Ziaur Rahman allowed the Jamaat back into politics in Bangladesh, whose independence from Pakistan it had so violently opposed.

Mir Quasem was the convenor of NGO Rabita al-Alam al-Islami’s Bangladesh chapter when he started playing some role in Jamaat’s politics in 1980. He later went on to become the NGO’s director.

He was a former vice-chairman of Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited and chairman of the now-closed Diganta Media Corporation, believed to be pro-Jamaat.

He is also the founder of Ibn Sina Trust and a founding member of Islami Bank Foundation.

He became a member of the Jamaat’s policymaking executive council in 1985.

Mir Quasem built no house but a mosque on the land he bought in Chala. He wanted to fight in election from the constituency on BNP-Jamaat coalition's ticket.

Freedom fighters and Awami League supporters demonstrated in Manikganj after media reported, quoting Mir Quasem's wife, that he would be buried there.

They demanded the authorities do not allow the body into Manikganj.