The government should re-evaluate its ties with Pakistan if they do not withdraw their statement over the trial of war criminals in Bangladesh
Gonojagoron Moncho activists have protested against Pakistani Home Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan’s recent statement over the death penalty meted out to war criminal and Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami.
“When we are trying the war criminals in our country, Pakistan government is protesting against it in order to save them. It is easily understood that the war criminals had sided with them during our liberation war,” said Imran H Sarkar, spokesman of the Moncho.
The government should re-evaluate its ties with Pakistan if they do not withdraw their statement over the trial of war criminals in Bangladesh, he said. He also demanded quick execution of the death penalty meted out to war criminal Mohammad Kamaruzzaman.
The Moncho revealed three points of demand – ‘withdrawal of Pakistani embassy and expulsion of its diplomats, ‘postponement of commercial ties with Pakistan and revaluation of the relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan’ and boycott of all Pakistani goods.
Activists of Bangladesh Students’ Union, Socialist Women Front and Udichi, among others, were part of the protest rally held at Shahbagh in the capital.
Bangladesh Chhatro Moitri also arranged a human chain at Shahbagh around the same time demanding quick execution of all death-sentenced war criminals.
Expressing concern over Nizami’s death penalty, Pakistan’s Home Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had though what happened in Bangladesh was that country’s internal matter, yet Pakistan could not remain divorced from references to 1971 and its aftermath.
On Thursday, Dhaka summoned Pakistani acting high commissioner Ahmed Hussain Dayo, strongly protesting the statement as well as handing over him an aide-mémoire.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
