Controversy surfaced over convicted war criminal Ghulam Azam’s funeral and process of handing over the body shortly after the announcement of his death last night.
Before the announcement by the authorities of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, some family members and lawyers of Ghulam were saying that the former Jamaat-e-Islami chief had died.
Asked about the funeral plan, they declined to disclose it until the formal announcement came. They were repeatedly saying that they would announce Ghulam’s last wish after the official announcement of death.
Just after the announcement, when the Dhaka Tribune asked Ghulam’s lawyer Tajul Islam about the plan, he said Ghulam had expressed his wish to be buried beside the grave of his father at the family graveyard on Moghbazar Kazi Office Lane.
About the plan of namaz-e-janaza, Tajul said they were yet to make any plan.
But shortly after this conversation, Tajul told reporters in a briefing that Ghulam had also expressed his last wish that the janaza be conducted by incumbent Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami; if not possible, then Delawar Hossain Sayedee.
Nizami and Sayedee are both in jail. Sayedee was sentenced to imprisonment until death for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War. On the other hand, Nizami’s war crimes case is pending at a war crimes tribunal for delivering verdict. About Ghulam’s wishes, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told the Dhaka Tribune over phone: “It is hard to believe what they [Ghulam’s men] are saying about the last wish of convicted war criminal Ghulam Azam.
“The claim centring the last wish is questionable. Are they [Jamaat] using his death to do politics?” He questioned whether the wish was practical since Nizami and Sayedee both were in jail.
“Is there any moral ground of giving importance to the last wish of such a heinous war criminal? It will be a disrespect to the departed souls of the 30 lakh martyrs of the War of Independence.”
Meanwhile, Shahriar Kabir, a leading war trial campaigner, termed the last wish “his last politics against the country.”
Ghulam’s lawyers went to the house of the Dhaka deputy commissioner in the midnight so that the BSMMU authorities did not conduct the post mortem examination. The DC, however, told them that they could not give any decision before this morning, Saiful Islam, a lawyer of Ghulam, said.
Brig Gen (retd) Abdul Majid Bhuiyan, director of the BSMMU, said since he died as an inmate, his body would be handed over to the family as per the jail code. “It will be completed by tonight [yesterday].”
Tajul Islam, another lawyer for Ghulam, said he believed that the authorities would perform the post mortem examination.
“We are looking for a mortuary to preserve the body since five of Ghulam Azam’s sons reside abroad – four in the UK and another in Saudi Arabia. The janaza and burial will take place after their return,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.
Last minute drama
There was no shortage of confusion and drama centring the death of war criminal Ghulam Azam for more than a couple of hours until he was eventually declared dead at the BSMMU at midnight.
While the war criminal’s family apparently wanted him declared dead as soon as possible, the doctors at BSMMU tried to keep him alive on life support for a few more hours.
His family claimed that he was clinically dead between 9:30pm-9:40pm although the doctors were still to confirm.
By 10pm, most television channels and online news portals had been carrying news that the razakar kingpin’s health condition had deteriorated and that he was taken to the ICU and given life support. They were also carrying his family’s claim that he was already dead by then.
Around 11:30pm, Md Forman Ali, senior jail super of Dhaka Central Jail, came out of the cardiac intensive care unit (ICU) of the BSSMMU and told journalists that he was on life support.
Then came out one of Ghulam Azam’s sisters-in-law, who refused to disclose her identity. She said: “We are finished.”
Around 11:50pm, Ghulam’s son former Brig Gen Abdullahil Aman Azmi raised questions about why the doctors were not declaring him dead.
As news spread, hundreds of journalists, Ghulam Azam’s family members, relatives, lawyers and close aides thronged the BSMMU premises.
The expression of some supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami, of which Ghulam was a former chief, gave the idea that they wanted their leader dead as soon as possible instead of the doctors trying to keep his breath going.
The final announcement came around 11:55pm from the BSMMU director who said: “Ghulam Azam died of cardiac arrest at 10:10pm.” When he was making the announcement, some Jamaat supporters gave angry expressions. One of them could be heard saying: “How many more lives will you take this way?”
During Tajul’s announcement over Nizami and Sayedee’s presence in janaza, loud cheers could be heard from the Jamaat supporters who had gathered there.
