Mir Quasem’s case shifted to ICT-2

The case of Jamaat-e-Islami leader and financier Mir Quasem Ali has been transferred to the second war crimes tribunal of Bangladesh for swift disposal.

Giving the order on Monday, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 headed by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir, said the first tribunal had a several cases in hand.

Proceedings of the case would resume from its current state, said the order.

Ali was indicted on Sept 5 on 14 charges including murder, abduction and torture during the 1971 Liberation War.

Monday was set for the case’s opening statement but instead the tribunal ordered to transfer the case.

An Executive Council Member of Jamaat, Ali is widely known as one of the key financiers of the party.

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

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

These 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.

He 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 filed the charges against him and the tribunal took them into cognisance on May 26.

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 along with most of his family members 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.