Jamaat financier indicted on 14 charges

The first war crimes tribunal of Bangladesh has indicted Jamaat-e-Islami leader and financier Mir Quasem Ali on 14 charges including murder, abduction and torture.

Founder of the Ibn Sina Trust and an owner of Diganta Media, Quasem Ali is said to have been third in Al-Badr militia command structure during the 1971 Liberation War.

The International Crimes Tribunal-1, set up to try crimes against humanity during the nine-month war, on Thursday fixed Sept 30 for Quasem Ali’s trial, when the prosecution will presumably begin with its opening arguments.

The tribunal has observed that Jamaat, and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Sangha were instrumental in mobilising the pro-Pakistani vigilante militia groups like the Razakar, Al-Badr and Al Shams.

This militia groups are held responsible for perpetrating widespread atrocities amounting to war crimes.

Quasem Ali allegedly was a key leader of Chittagong’s Al Badr unit and also featured prominently in the national Al Badr structure.

He is a director of the Islami Bank and director of the non-government organisation, Rabita al-Alam al-Islami.

The Jamaat leader is also said to be one of the top financiers of the party. He is the chairman of the Diganta Media Corporation, regarded as a pro-Jamaat media house.

Mir Quasem was arrested on June 17 last year from the Naya Diganta newspaper office in less than two hours of the tribunal issuing a warrant of arrest. Later the tribunal sent him to jail.

The prosecution on May 16 had filed the charges against the Jamaat leader and the tribunal on May 26 had taken the charges into cognisance.

The 14 charges levelled against Mir Quasem include murder, abduction, torture and massacre.

Crimes against humanity including murder, massacre, rape and loot were rampant in Chittagong and Mir Quasem allegedly had played a leading role in them.

There are also allegations that he ordered the massacre and murders at the Razakar camps there.

Mir Quasem, who is from Manikganj's Harirampur, was better known as 'Mintu' to the people of Chittagong during the war. He was associated with the Islami Chhatra Sangha during his college days.

Later he became the President of the Islami Chhatra Sangha’s Chittagong unit and General Secretary of its East Pakistan unit.

Al-Badr members and Razakars had set up torture centres in Dalim Hotel at Andarkilla, leather depot at Asadganj and in Salma Monjil at Panchlaish in the port city.

He is also accused of preparing a list of the intellectuals who were murdered towards the end of the Liberation War. The intellectuals were killed on Dec 14, 1971, only two days before the victory.

After independence, Mir Quasem had fled to Saudi Arabia and returned to Bangladesh only after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of the members of Bangabandhu’s family were brutally killed on Aug 15, 1975.

Later, when Chhatra Sangha rechristened itself as Islami Chhatra Shibir on February 6, 1977, he became its founding President.