Convicted war criminal Ghulam Azam was buried at his family graveyard in the capital’s Moghbazar yesterday.
He was laid to rest after namaj-e-janaza at Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in the afternoon. Hundreds of leaders and activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir took part in the janaza.
Earlier, the leaders and activists of Bangladesh Sammilito Islami Jote, blogger online and Chhatra Mukti staged protests in Paltan area and tried to bar Ghulam’s body from being taken to the national mosque.
At that time, an activist of Gonojagoron Moncho hurled his shoe at the ambulance, carrying the body of Ghulam Azam.
Mahmudul Haque Munshi, one of the key organisers of Gonojagoron Moncho, said he threw his shoe to express his hatred to the convicted war criminal.
Later, Shibir men physically assaulted him, but police and few of his fellows rescued him from them.
Besides, the police barricaded one side of the road as a measure to avoid untoward situation while Jamaat men took position on other side.
The ambulance carrying the body of Ghulam Azam, kept in an air-conditioned room at his home, reached the national mosque around 1:15pm. Scores of Jamaat-Shibir men cordoned the ambulance from his Moghbazar house to the mosque. Later, his son Abdullahil Aman Azmi conducted the janaza around 1:50pm.
Party’s Nayeb-e-Ameer Mujibur Rahman, Press Secretary Tasnim Alam, central executive committee member Syed Abdullah Mohammad Taher, BNP chairperson’s adviser Shawkat Mahmud, Islami Oikya Jote Chairman Abdul Latif Nezami, Islami Andolan Bangladesh Dhaka City Unit President ATM Hemayet Uddin and leaders of the BNP and Islamic parties took part in the janaza.
A number of Jamaat and Shibir leaders, accused in different cases, also took part in the janaza. They include former Shibir president Salim Uddin, incumbent Shibir President Abdul Jabbar, Secretary General Atiqur Rahman, central leaders Yasin Arafat, Shahin Alam and Jamal Uddin.
However, Jamaat acting ameer Mokbul Ahmed and acting secretary general Shafiqur Rahman, Dhaka City Ameer Rafiqul Islam Khan and some other leaders did not take part in the janaza.
To avoid any unwanted situation, security was beefed up and law enforcers suspended traffic on several streets surrounding Baitul Mukarram Mosque.
Five handmade bombs also exploded in the area around 11:20am before the body arrived, but no casualty was reported, police said.
Ghulam Azam, who was sentenced to 90 years’ imprisonment for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971, died on Thursday at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) in the capital.
On July 15 last year, a special war crimes tribunal spared him from death sentence considering his age and awarded him 90-year jail term finding him guilty on five counts such as conspiracy, planning, incitement, and complicity in crimes against humanity and genocide and murders during the wartime.