Bangladesh hangs Jamaat-e-Islami chief Nizami for 1971 war crimes to protect Pakistan

Motiur Rahman Nizami has paid with his life for the carnage he unleashed on Bengalis as the commander of Al-Badr militia to stop a secular Bangladesh being carved out of Islamic Pakistan in 1971.

Liton HaiderKamal Talukder, Golam Mujtaba Dhruba and bdnews24.com
Published : 10 May 2016, 06:11 PM
Updated : 11 May 2016, 01:26 PM

He was hung by the neck at Dhaka Central Jail in the first hour of Wednesday, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told bdnews24.com around 12:10am.

The executive order to carry on with his execution was sent to the prison after the Jamaat-e-Islami chief chose not to beg the president to have mercy on him, the minister had said on Tuesday.

Following his execution, Nizami was buried in his native village Monmothpur at Santhia Upazila in Pabna in the early hours of Wednesday.

Two ambulances, including one carrying the corpse, reached his village around 6:15am escorted by RAB and police vehicles.

His son Nazib Momen received the body from the Upazila executive officer around 6:40am.

Nizami was buried around 7:30am after a funeral prayer.

He had orchestrated the murders of intellectuals just before the victory of Bangladesh on Dec 16, 1971.

Police have cordoned off the area outside the Dhaka Central Jail gate at Old Dhaka’s Nazimuddin Road as journalists and crowds gathered since Tuesday afternoon to witness the fate of the fifth war criminal to be put to death for horrific atrocities in 1971.

Security had been heightened around the prison premises with additional police, RAB along with plainclothesmen roaming the area.

The 73-year old Jamaat chief’s brutal past caught up with him when he had exhausted all options to get his death penalty overturned, which was handed down by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in 2014.

The tribunal in its verdict had observed that giving a ministerial berth to Nizami was a “slap on the faces of millions of martyrs”.

"Motiur Rahman Nizami being educated in Islamic education had consciously and also deliberately misused the name of the Almighty Allah and the holy religion Islam in 1971 during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in order to ruin and root out the Bengali Nation,” it said.

“We are of the unanimous view that there would be failure of justice in case ' capital punishment' is not awarded for all the murders forming 'large scale killing',” said the judges in the verdict.

The legal battle that he waged even since his arrest on Jun 29, 2010, has been long.

The Appellate Division in its Jan 6 verdict, published on Mar 15, upheld the maximum sentence and had said, “There is no mitigating circumstances to reduce the death sentences, rather there are aggravating circumstances.”
 
He then sought a review of the Supreme Court judgment but the petition was dismissed last week for having ‘no merit’.

“Motiur Rahman Nizami not only co-operated with the Pakistani invading force in committing various crimes against humanity but also masterminded the formation of Al-Badr Bahini and was a leader of this Al-Badr Bahini,” read his appeal verdict.

He was entitled to beg pardon from the president by admitting his guilt, but the home minister at 8:10pm on Tuesday said, “Nizami did not seek mercy. The executive order to carry out the death sentence has been sent to the prison authorities.”

Final hours

* Senior Jail Superintendent Jahangir Kabir carries executive order to hang the 73-year-old in Dhaka Central Jail.

* Hangman Tanvir Hasan Raju arrives at the prison in an ambulance. 

* Nizami is visited in the prison by 24 members of his family, including his wife and two sons, for a meeting that lasted for nearly two hours.

* Civil Surgeon Abdul Malek Mridha and Dhaka Deputy Commissioner Md Salah Uddin enter prison where two ambulances were waiting.

* Nizami is led to the hanging post from his condemned cell after being administered ‘Tauba’ or ‘repentance for sins’ by a Moulavi.

* Arrangements are completed to bury him in his family graveyard in Monmothpur, his village from Dhopadaha Union at Pabna’s Santhia.

On Monday, the full copy of the review verdict was released and sent to the ICT. TV cameras panned on the tribunal officials as they took documents wrapped in red cloth to Dhaka Central Jail.

As head of Jamaat, Nizami has followed to the gallows partners in crime Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdur Quader Molla – all top leaders of his party.

After Mujahid, he is the second war criminal to be hanged for orchestrating the abduction and killings of Bengali intellectuals for siding with the freedom struggle.

Both had headed the Al-Badr which during the war had dubbed itself the ‘Angel of Death’ for those fighting to be liberated from a repressive Pakistan.

The other charges describe Nizami assisting Pakistani soldiers in mass killing, murders, rapes, abduction and torture in Santhia.

He was handed life imprisonment for ordering the murders of young freedom fighters including Shafi Imam Rumi who was being held at Nakhalparha’s MP Hostel on Aug 8, 1971.

From killing field to Cabinet

Nizami was born on Mar 31, 1943, in Monmothpur of Santhia.

He got his Kamil degree in Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) from Dhaka’s Madrasa-e-Alia in 1963.

He graduated from the University of Dhaka in 1967.

Nizami joined Jamaat’s then student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha and swiftly rose through the ranks to become its president in 1966, a post he retained for the following five years.

He had joined Jamaat after completing his studies and became chief of its Dhaka City unit.

He took his place in the party’s central executive committee in 1978 and remained there until 1982.

He was Jamaat’s secretary general from 1988 until he succeeded the party chief Ghulam Azam in 2000.

He was elected a Member of Parliament in the election of 1991 and leader of Jamaat’s parliamentary party. He was also elected to parliament from Pabna-1 in 2001 when the Jamaat-BNP coalition took power.

Nizami served as the Minister for Agriculture until 2003 and thereafter as Minister for Industries until 2006.

It was during his term as industries minister when 10 truckloads of weapons and ammunition were seized from state-owned Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd jetty in the port city while they were being offloaded from trawlers in the early hours of Apr 2, 2004.

Nizami was also sentenced to death in a case over the haul.

The former minister was accused in Gatco corruption case.

[Written by Samin Sababa, Tanjir Rahman Bhuiyan and Osham-ul-Sufian Talukder; edited by Biswadip Das]