By Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty
With the death of Gholam Azam a painful and bloody chapter in Bangladesh’s history has been laid to rest. The erstwhile Ameer of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the leading Islamist party in Bangladesh, died as a prisoner in Dhaka’s Medical University Hospital on Oct 23, 2014 at the age of 92.
He was serving a 90 year sentence following his conviction for war crimes committed during Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971. Azam is the second war criminal to die in a hospital prison ward after the death of convicted war criminal Abdul Alim. Earlier, a convicted war criminal Quader Mollah, also from the Jamaat, was sentenced to death and executed.
War criminal Azams’ death has provoked demonstrations in his home district of Brahmanbaria where people have demanded that his body not be allowed to be buried there. Secular and progressive Bangladeshi organizations have called for his body to be sent to Pakistan for burial, since the soil of Bangladesh was soaked with the “sacred blood of martyrs and should not be polluted with the body of a traitor”.
Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971 remains an emotive issue. Azam’s role as a staunch supporter of Pakistan made him a top traitor in Bangladeshi eyes. The memory of millions killed and tortured, the agony of hundreds of thousands of women raped by Pakistani officers and soldiers and the travails of millions of refugees still remains a raw wound in the collective public memory in Bangladesh. Azam, his cohorts and organizations helped and took part in these atrocities, as collaborators of the Pakistani Army.
Azam campaigned extensively against Bangladesh’s freedom struggle and continued his ideological movement for a united Pakistan even after 1971. The Jamaat-e-Islami party, its student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha (later renamed Islami Chhatra Shibir) were involved in Azam’s campaign. These organizations had played important roles in forming the Peace Committees and other pro-Pakistani collaborator outfits, like the Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams. Azam and his collaborators called the freedom fighters “miscreants”, “Indian agents” and “malaun” (a pejorative word used against Hindus) and “infiltrators”.
Azam became the symbol of war crimes in Bangladesh and the leading collaborator in one of the world’s worst genocide. In one of the most despicable acts of revenge, Azam masterminded the killing of Bangladeshi intellectuals by the Pakistani Army and his local collaborators on Dec 14, 1971 when Pakistan was on the verge of defeat and sought to deprive a newly independent Bangladesh of its leading intellectuals. The government of newly independent Bangladesh banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and cancelled Azam’s citizenship. Azam fled to Pakistan.
He campaigned until 1973 to build public opinion in the Islamic world to prevent the recognition of Bangladesh as an independent nation. He visited Saudi Arabia in March 1975 and told King Faisal that Hindus had captured East Pakistan, killed Muslims, burnt the holy Quran, destroyed mosques and converted them into temples. By purveying such blatant lies, Azam collected funds from the Middle East for rebuilding mosques and madrassas.
After the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father and first president of Bangladesh, in August 1975, Bangladesh went through a turbulent political phase which led to General Zia-ur-Rahman usurping power. As president, Zia allowed Azam to return to Bangladesh on a Pakistani passport. Zia’s objective was to promote Islamization and roll back the secular tradition of the Liberation War and Bangladesh’s constitution as an independent nation.
He saw Bangladesh as a mirror image of Pakistan and people like Azam helped him to further this objective. Ghulam Azam was officially declared Ameer of Jamaat in the early 1990s. In 1991, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), founded by Zia, formed the government with support from the Jamaat. Azam’s Bangladeshi citizenship was restored by a court order in 1994.
Azam’s murky past caught up with him when in July last year, Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal handed down a life sentence after finding him guilty of the offences of conspiracy, planning, incitement, complicity in crimes against humanity and genocide and murders during the Liberation War and other wartime offences in 1971. The judges said Azam deserved the gallows but he was given a prison term due to his old age. “We are convinced in holding that accused Prof Ghulam Azam was the pivot of crimes and all the atrocities revolved around him during the War of Liberation,” the three judges said in their verdict. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government set up the tribunal in 2010 after she had pledged before the 2008 election to prosecute those responsible for war crimes. She won a landslide victory and the demand for punishment for war crimes grew into a mass movement.
The Tribunal has been criticized as a political tool of the ruling Awami League (AL) party for persecution of the BNP and the Jamaat. But the people of Bangladesh have supported the Tribunal and demanded the death penalty for all convicted war criminals. The Islamists in Bangladesh are down, but not out.
The murky details of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB) re-organizing in West Bengal and indulging in bomb making for use in Bangladesh clearly points to a nexus between them and Islamists in West Bengal. The state government’s role in this whole affair is under the scanner. Bangladesh is rightly worried that Islamist elements who want to remove Hasina’s government are conspiring to create violence in Bangladesh, perhaps with the help of Islamists elements in West Bengal.
This will complicate India’s relations with Bangladesh and the Indian government must act decisively to eradicate these elements. The West Bengal government appears to have turned a blind eye for narrow electoral politics and the central government must ensure that national security is paramount and petty local politics does not stand in the way.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
BANGLADESH: ANOTHER WAR CRIMINAL GONE, BUT ISLAMISTS REORGANISING – ANALYSIS
By Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty
With the death of Gholam Azam a painful and bloody chapter in Bangladesh’s history has been laid to rest. The erstwhile Ameer of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the leading Islamist party in Bangladesh, died as a prisoner in Dhaka’s Medical University Hospital on Oct 23, 2014 at the age of 92.
He was serving a 90 year sentence following his conviction for war crimes committed during Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971. Azam is the second war criminal to die in a hospital prison ward after the death of convicted war criminal Abdul Alim. Earlier, a convicted war criminal Quader Mollah, also from the Jamaat, was sentenced to death and executed.
War criminal Azams’ death has provoked demonstrations in his home district of Brahmanbaria where people have demanded that his body not be allowed to be buried there. Secular and progressive Bangladeshi organizations have called for his body to be sent to Pakistan for burial, since the soil of Bangladesh was soaked with the “sacred blood of martyrs and should not be polluted with the body of a traitor”.
Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971 remains an emotive issue. Azam’s role as a staunch supporter of Pakistan made him a top traitor in Bangladeshi eyes. The memory of millions killed and tortured, the agony of hundreds of thousands of women raped by Pakistani officers and soldiers and the travails of millions of refugees still remains a raw wound in the collective public memory in Bangladesh. Azam, his cohorts and organizations helped and took part in these atrocities, as collaborators of the Pakistani Army.
Azam campaigned extensively against Bangladesh’s freedom struggle and continued his ideological movement for a united Pakistan even after 1971. The Jamaat-e-Islami party, its student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha (later renamed Islami Chhatra Shibir) were involved in Azam’s campaign. These organizations had played important roles in forming the Peace Committees and other pro-Pakistani collaborator outfits, like the Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams. Azam and his collaborators called the freedom fighters “miscreants”, “Indian agents” and “malaun” (a pejorative word used against Hindus) and “infiltrators”.
Azam became the symbol of war crimes in Bangladesh and the leading collaborator in one of the world’s worst genocide. In one of the most despicable acts of revenge, Azam masterminded the killing of Bangladeshi intellectuals by the Pakistani Army and his local collaborators on Dec 14, 1971 when Pakistan was on the verge of defeat and sought to deprive a newly independent Bangladesh of its leading intellectuals. The government of newly independent Bangladesh banned the Jamaat-e-Islami and cancelled Azam’s citizenship. Azam fled to Pakistan.
He campaigned until 1973 to build public opinion in the Islamic world to prevent the recognition of Bangladesh as an independent nation. He visited Saudi Arabia in March 1975 and told King Faisal that Hindus had captured East Pakistan, killed Muslims, burnt the holy Quran, destroyed mosques and converted them into temples. By purveying such blatant lies, Azam collected funds from the Middle East for rebuilding mosques and madrassas.
After the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father and first president of Bangladesh, in August 1975, Bangladesh went through a turbulent political phase which led to General Zia-ur-Rahman usurping power. As president, Zia allowed Azam to return to Bangladesh on a Pakistani passport. Zia’s objective was to promote Islamization and roll back the secular tradition of the Liberation War and Bangladesh’s constitution as an independent nation.
He saw Bangladesh as a mirror image of Pakistan and people like Azam helped him to further this objective. Ghulam Azam was officially declared Ameer of Jamaat in the early 1990s. In 1991, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), founded by Zia, formed the government with support from the Jamaat. Azam’s Bangladeshi citizenship was restored by a court order in 1994.
Azam’s murky past caught up with him when in July last year, Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal handed down a life sentence after finding him guilty of the offences of conspiracy, planning, incitement, complicity in crimes against humanity and genocide and murders during the Liberation War and other wartime offences in 1971. The judges said Azam deserved the gallows but he was given a prison term due to his old age. “We are convinced in holding that accused Prof Ghulam Azam was the pivot of crimes and all the atrocities revolved around him during the War of Liberation,” the three judges said in their verdict. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government set up the tribunal in 2010 after she had pledged before the 2008 election to prosecute those responsible for war crimes. She won a landslide victory and the demand for punishment for war crimes grew into a mass movement.
The Tribunal has been criticized as a political tool of the ruling Awami League (AL) party for persecution of the BNP and the Jamaat. But the people of Bangladesh have supported the Tribunal and demanded the death penalty for all convicted war criminals. The Islamists in Bangladesh are down, but not out.
The murky details of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB) re-organizing in West Bengal and indulging in bomb making for use in Bangladesh clearly points to a nexus between them and Islamists in West Bengal. The state government’s role in this whole affair is under the scanner. Bangladesh is rightly worried that Islamist elements who want to remove Hasina’s government are conspiring to create violence in Bangladesh, perhaps with the help of Islamists elements in West Bengal.
This will complicate India’s relations with Bangladesh and the Indian government must act decisively to eradicate these elements. The West Bengal government appears to have turned a blind eye for narrow electoral politics and the central government must ensure that national security is paramount and petty local politics does not stand in the way.
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