Shoes hurled at hearse carrying Ghulam Azam’s body

The hearse carrying the body of top war criminal Ghulam Azam to the Baitul Mukarram for funeral prayers has been pelted with shoes.

He was thrashed with shoes in the 1980s for his anti-liberation role at the same mosque where his funeral prayers were held on Saturday.

Azam, who led Jamaat-e-Islami during the Liberation War and tried his best to prevent Bangladesh's birth, died Thursday while serving a 90-year sentence for crimes against humanity handed down last year.

He was buried at Dhaka's Moghbazar.

Police barred a procession of Bangladesh Online Activist Forum (BOAF) and several Dhaka University-based organisations who protested against conducting the Jamaat ideologue's Janaza at the Baitul Mukarram.

They agitated in front of the National Press Club shouting slogans that funeral prayers of the man who had opposed Bangladesh's liberation cannot be held at the national mosque.

Several organisations demanded that the notorious war criminal's body be sent to Pakistan -- a country he fought for during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971.

Witnesses said BOAF activist Mahmudul Haque Munshi hurled a shoe at the vehicle carrying coffin of the icon of anti-liberation force when it took turn at Paltan intersection to head towards Baitul Mukarram.

Blog activist Omi Rahman Pial captured the scene.

The incident agitated the Jamaat-Shibir activists present there but no untoward incident took place as police promptly intervened.

 

Leftist student front Chhatra Moitri activists said they, too, had pelted the vehicle with shoes out of utter hatred for the leader of the war criminals.

"How can war crimes convict Ghulam Azam's Janaza be held at the national mosque?" asked Moitri leader 'Tanvir'.

"We strongly protest against it," he said, adding: "We threw shoes at him as an expression of our hatred."