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Published : 30 Dec 2014, 12:15 AM
The International Crimes Tribunal-1, headed by Justice Enayetur Rahim, set the verdict date on Monday.
Hearing in the case against the Jamaat assistant secretary general was wrapped up on Sept 18.
Indicted on Nov 12 last year, he stands accused of murder, genocide, abduction, torture, and rape in Rangpur during the war.
According to the prosecution, charges brought against Azhar include murder of 1,225 people in Rangpur, murder of four more, abduction of 17 people, torture on 13 people, and arson.
Azhar, a higher secondary student at Rangpur’s Carmichael College in 1971, was the chief of the Islami Chhatra Shangha, the then student front of Jamaat.
He had allegedly led the Al-Badr vigilante militia to assist the Pakistan Army to throttle the freedom struggle.
Azhar was arrested at his Moghbazar residence on Aug 22, 2012 and has been in jail since then.
Charge-1
Azhar along with other armed members of the Jamaat and ICS and Pakistani troops abducted Liberation War organiser and National Awami Party leader AY Mahfuz Ali Zorres Mia and 10 others within Mar 24 to Mar 27 in 1971.
They took the detainees to Rangpur cantonment and tortured them there. Ten of them were killed in brushfire at Dokhiganj crematorium on Apr 3. Dr Dinesh Chandra Bhowmik ‘luckily’ escaped with bullet injuries.
Charge-2
Azhar along with several other Jamaat and ICS activists and Pakistani Army men went to Taxerhat Relgumti under Badarganj in Rangpur on Apr 16.
On their way to Dhapparha, they looted and torched many houses. At Dhapparha, they shot dead 14 unarmed civilians.
Charge-3
The ICS leader, other members of the organisation and Jamaat supporters and Pakistani troops swooped on several villages near Jharuarbeel on Apr 17 killing over 1200 Hindu villagers.
They also detained another 200 people and murdered them at an unspecified location. The perpetrators also looted and torched houses there.
Charge-4
Azhar along with Al-Badr and Pakistani Army personnel abducted four professors of Carmichael College and wife of another from its campus on Apr 30 and shot them dead near Damdam Bridge.
Charge-5
Jamaat and ICS activists and local Bihari people led by Azhar helped Pakistani military to detain, violate and physically torture scores of women at Rangpur cantonment.
Charge-6
Azhar tortured Shawkat Hossain Ranga for chanting ‘Joy Bangla’ slogan at Rangpur town in the middle of November. Later, Ranga’s sibling Rafiqul Hassan Nannu was abducted from Betpatti in the district town and tortured at Carmichael College’s Shaheed Muslim Hall.
