Jamaat calls shutdown for Monday to protest its war criminal leader Kamaruzzaman's execution

The Jamaat-e-Islami has called a shutdown across Bangladesh for Monday to protest the hanging of party leader and war criminal Mohammad Kamaruzzaman.

Jamaat’s acting chief Maqbool Ahmed in a statement on Saturday night claimed the government executed Kamaruzzaman out of “political vengeance”.

He announced a mass prayer for the war criminal on Sunday and said ambulances, hospital and fire service vehicles would be out of the purview of the strike.

The statement, issued minutes after the execution, claimed the Jamaat senior assistant secretary general had no “ties with Sohagpur massacre”.

On Jun 25, 1971, Kamaruzzaman led the Pakistan Army to the village, killing 120 men and raping their women.

So many were widowed that the place came to be called the ‘village of widows’.

The genocide was one of the two charges for which the ICT awarded him death.

The Appellate Division noted that the war criminal’s “acts can be comparable with none but beasts”.

“Even Nazis did not perpetrate such brutal acts,” it added.

Suspected war criminals were put on trial after the previous Awami League government formed the first International Crimes Tribunal in 2010.

A second one was set up two years later to expedite the trials.

Jamaat, accused of perpetrating war crimes, claims the trials fall short of international standards and accuses the government of carrying out political vendetta – a charge the government rejects.

Kamaruzzaman is the second war criminal to be executed for war crimes. The first was Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Molla.

Most of the convicts are from Jamaat.

Party chief Ahmed urged his party and countrymen to “peacefully” observe Monday’s general strike.

Jamaat activists ran amok after the conviction of its leaders on war crimes charges.