Mujahid: Social welfare, blood on hands

“Al Badr is a name, a wonder! It is a promise! Wherever there are the so-called freedom fighters, there’s Al-Badr … Wherever there are miscreants, there’s Al Badr … It is Azrail (Angel of Death) for the agents of India and the miscreants,” is how the militia, raised by the Pakistani army to crush the Bengali struggle, said of itself in 1971.

And it was Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, who led that notorious force during the Liberation War and planned the killings of Bengali intellectuals.

Starting his political career with Jamaat-e-Islami’s erstwhile student organisation, the Islami Chhatra Shangha, he not only actively opposed Bangladesh’s independence, but also helped the Pakistan army in every possible way – taking part in crimes against humanity, genocide, murder, torture, loot – to thwart the nation’s struggle for freedom.

The man, who so fiercely opposed the birth of the nation, had no qualms in sporting the national flag on his car as a minister between 2001 and 2006.

Mujahid worked his way up to the Jamaat's top echelons and became its secretary general. Although he was a minister and a top Jamaat leader, he was never accepted by the people, evident from his failure to win a parliament election despite several attempts.

Born on Jan 2, 1948 at Khabaspur in Faridpur, Mujahid joined the Chhatra Shangha while still a higher secondary student at the Government Rajendra College in Faridpur. He became the organisation’s district unit chief in 1968.

His father Abdul Ali, a member of East Pakistan Provincial Council, was the Faridpur unit chief of the notorious ‘Shanti Committee’ during the Liberation War.

Mujahid moved to Dhaka after finishing his higher secondary studies and became the Dhaka district secretary of the student front in 1970. Then, he became the organisation’s ‘East Pakistan’ unit secretary and soon its provincial president after the 1971 war broke out.

According to his lawyer's website, Mujahid holds a Masters degree in Political Sciences from the University of Chittagong.

He became the President of Al Badr, a force comprising Chhatra Sangha activists, in October in 1971, succeeding Motiur Rahman Nizami, the present Jamaat chief convicted for war crimes and sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal.

Jamaat mouthpiece ‘Dainik Sangram’ ran a report on Nov 14, 1971 quoting Nizami. “It is our utter good luck that young Islam-loving students have formed the Al Badr, inspired by the memories of the Badr War,” he had said.

The Al Badr had led the slaughter of Bangladesh’s intellectuals just before the nation achieved independence.

The tribunal’s verdict observed that it was Mujahid, who planned and executed the murders of intellectuals and under his leadership, the force indulged in mass murder, genocide, kidnapping and looting across the country.

He refused to surrender with his force even after the Pakistan military laid down their arms on Dec 16, 1971.

“Members of the Al Badr had carried out his orders until the last day,” Prosecutor Tureen Afroz said during the hearing at the International Crimes Tribunal.

Jamaat claims the case against him was ‘politically motivated’. The party maintains the cases against war criminals Ghulam Azam, Motiur Rahman Nizami, Abdul Quader Molla, Mohammad Kamaruzzman, Delwar Hossain Sayedee and other Jamaat leaders too were similarly framed.

Mujahid joined Jamaat-e-Islami after the War and became a member of its central council in 1982, when the party became active again after the assassination of the nation’s founding father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Before becoming the secretary general in 2000, he had been the assistant secretary general from 1989.

Although he had never won a parliamentary election, he was made the minister of social welfare by BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia in 2001.

The Jamaat leader was detained on Jun 29, 2010 for hurting religious sentiments. Later that year, on Oct 2, he was shown arrested on war crimes charges. He has been in prison since then.

Mujahid had rejected all allegations against him and his colleagues claiming there were no war criminals in Bangladesh.

Forty-two years after independence, Mujahid walked the gallows for crimes committed against humanity during the 1971 Liberation war. He was hanged at 12:55am in the early hours of Sunday, November 22, 2015.