Several organisations have asked that the government send the body of war criminal Ghulam Azam to Pakistan which he fought for during Bangladesh’s liberation in 1971.
The demand came from a human-chain protest staged by Bangladesh Online Activists Forum in front of the National Press Club on Friday, the organisation said in a media release.
Azam, who led the Jamaat-e-Islami during 1971, died on Thursday in the prison cell at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital while serving jail term that the International Crimes Tribunal awarded him for crimes against humanity committed during the war.
Speakers at the human chain said the soil of Bangladesh liberated at the cost of huge blood could not be allowed to be desecrated by the burial of Ghulam Azam here.
Azam’s family said he would be laid to rest at family graveyard at Dhaka’s Moghbazar on Saturday after the funeral prayers at Baitul Mokarram.
Calling Azam a citizen of Pakistan, the speakers said his remains should be sent to Pakistan.
File Photo
Azam, who became synonymous with the anti-liberation effort for his notorious role during the Liberation War, left Bangladesh at the end of the war and returned with a Pakistani passport seven years later in 1978, when Gen Ziaur Rahman was the president.
The war criminal never apologised or regretted for going against the cause of his country’s liberation.
The ICT condemned Azam to 90-year jail-term on July 15 last year but he died serving only one year and three months.
Leaders and activists of Chetona 52, Kazi Aref Foundation, Ganatantra League and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal also joined the human chain programme.
Source: Bd news24
