Ghulam Azam has crossed into permanent infamy after spending a lifetime at the helm of a political party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, which he wilfully used as a perpetrator of war crimes during the Liberation War of 1971.
Ghulam Azam never repented for his war crimes. Despite being accorded the protection of Bangladeshi law and due process, in contrast to the summary executions that he and his Pakistani allies presided over, he never recanted his statements against the state.
Ghulam’s Jamaat-e-Islami, its student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha (now Islami Chhatra Shibir) and their allies not only opposed the birth of Bangladesh by collaborating with the Pakistani occupation force, but also committed heinous premeditated crimes on a horrific scale during the nine-month War of Independence.
The verdict in the war crimes trial against convicted war criminal Ghulam Azam at last year’s International Crimes Tribunal 1, termed the Jamaat-e-Islami “a criminal organisation” over its war-time role.
Ghulam Azam gained added notoriety as a symbol of all war criminals because of his orchestration of the carnage and collusion that sought to cripple the liberation struggle.
The tribunal convicted Ghulam, died of cardiac arrest at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Bangbandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University late Thursday night, for his leadership role in committing crimes against humanity and genocide.
He was sentenced to 90 years in prison for five charges proved against him.
The tribunal awarded Ghulam 10 years’ imprisonment for each count of conspiring and planning to commit crimes against humanity and genocide. It gave him 20 years each for incitement to and complicity in committing crimes against humanity, genocide and other war crimes. It also sentenced him to 30 years for torture and the killing of police officer Shiru Mia and three others.
During the Liberation War, Pakistani occupation forces, with active support from the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim League, Nezam-e-Islami and other like-minded political parties killed 3 million Bangalees and violated more than a quarter million women.
Their reign of terror forced 10 million Bangalees to take refuge in neighbouring India, internally displaced millions more and laid waste the country’s economy.
In a section of the Ghulam Azam war crimes verdict titled “Role of Jamaat-e-Islami during independence struggles of Pakistan and Bangladesh,” the former chairman of Tribunal 1, Justice Fazle Kabir, and two judges, Justice Jahangir Hossain Selim and Justice Anwarul Haque, discussed the Jamaat and Ghulam Azam’s role during and after the Liberation War.
The verdict said: “Taking the contextual circumstances coupled with documentary evidence into consideration, we are led to observe that Jamaat-e-Islami, as a political party under the leadership of accused Professor Ghulam Azam, intentionally functioned as a criminal organisation especially during the War of Liberation of Bangladesh in 1971.”
“Under the leadership of accused Professor Ghulam Azam almost all the members of Jamaat-e-Islami along with its subordinate organs actively opposed the very birth of Bangladesh in 1971,” said the judgement based on on-the-record evidence and facts of common knowledge.
The three judges of the tribunal said in the verdict: “We are convinced in holding that accused Professor Ghulam Azam was the pivot of crimes and all the atrocities revolved around him during the War of Liberation.”
The tribunal verdict said Ghulam had committed the crimes during the war through his party Jamaat-e-Islami and its wings.
The verdict said: “Having considered the attending facts, legal position and the gravity and magnitude of the offences committed by the accused, we unanimously hold that he deserves the highest punishment, i.e. capital punishment.”
But in consideration of Ghulam’s age and heath condition the judges took a lenient view in sentencing him and awarded him 90 years in jail.
“From the facts of common knowledge, we hold that any order or direction given by a religious leader like accused Ghulam Azam was always considered more powerful than that of an army general,” the verdict reads.
The judgement reads: “And after 42 years, it is noticed that some of the anti-liberation people are still staying at the helm of the Jamaat-e-Islami. As a result, the young generation belonging to the Jamaat-e-Islami are being psychologically reared up and nurtured with anti-liberation sentiments and communal feelings, which is a matter of great anxiety for a nation.
“There is no proof before the nation that those who played an anti-liberation role in 1971 have ever changed their attitude towards the liberation war by expressing repentance or by showing respect to the departed souls of 3 million martyrs.”
After the death of Ghulam many justice seekers also raised this issue.
Shahriar Kabir, a leading war crimes researcher, told the Dhaka Tribune over the phone that according to his lawyer, Ghulam Azam expressed his last wish that his janaza be conducted by incumbent Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami, or if that was not possible, then by Delawar Hossain Sayedee.
“Sayedee is a convicted war criminal and Nizami is an accused war criminal. Ghulam Azam wanted his janaza to be contacted by war criminals, not by any other person,” Shahriar said, “It proves that until his death Ghulam Azam’s commitment was to war crimes and war criminals. He did not even want to apologize for his criminal acts and anti-Bangladesh role.”
The tribunal judgement also said: “In the interest of establishing a democratic as well as non-communal Bangladesh, we observe that no such anti-liberation people should be allowed to sit at the helm of executives of the government, social or political parties, including government and non-government organisations.
“We are of the opinion that the government may take necessary steps to that end for debarring those anti-liberation persons from holding the said superior posts in order to establish a democratic and non-communal country for which millions of people sacrificed their lives during the War of Liberation.”
The judges said in the judgment: “It is an irony to note that during the independence of both Pakistan and Bangladesh, Jamaat-e-Islami played a foul role on two great occasions having no contribution to the creation of the said two states.”
The judgement observed that the Jamaat-e-Islami had utterly failed to realise the pulse of the common people on both the historic occasions mentioned above, probably due to the lack of far-sightedness caused by fanaticism.
When the movement for the independence of Pakistan began, the then founding chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Abul A’la Maudoodi opposed the idea of a separate state for Muslims.
The judgement reads: “In fact, Muslims of Bengal mainly fought for the independence of a separate homeland for Muslims. As soon as Pakistan got its independence in 1947, the Jamaat-e-Islami claimed itself as the only Islamic patriotic political party of Pakistan.
“While people of East Pakistan again started to struggle for self determination and independence, the Jamaat-e-Islami as a political party wholeheartedly tried to resist independence of Bangladesh in collaboration with Pakistan occupation army.
“But as soon as Bangladesh achieved its independence in 1971 at the cost of millions of lives, the Jamaat-e-Islami claimed itself as a true patriotic party of Bangladesh, terming the pro-liberation parties to be Indian agents.”
In separate verdicts of war crimes cases, Tribunal 2 also widely discussed the role of Jamaat in organising the collaborating forces named “Razakar Force, al-Badr, al-Shams and al-Mujahid” during the Liberation War in 1971.
The Jamaat, a self-styled Islamic party and brainchild of controversial Islamist thinker Maududi, was significantly proactive in its mission to wipe out the Bangalee nation in the name of protecting Pakistan in collaboration with the Pakistan occupation army.
International Crimes Tribunal 2, in a judgement, said Ghulam Azam played a pivotal role in forming the Shanti [peace] Committee, Razakar, al-Badr, al-Shams [collaborating paramilitary forces]. Jamaat and its student wing were behind the formation of al-Badr, the force that planned the slaughter of Bangalee intellectuals.
Ghulam Azam, who was chief of Jamaat in 1971, masterminded all the heinous crimes committed by his party, by both its student wing and the leaders of the organisation.
Even after the birth of independent Bangladesh in 1971 Ghulam tried to revive East Pakistan. He collected funds for “safeguarding the ideals of Pakistan” and orchestrated a propaganda campaign against Bangladesh around the world.
Ghulam who fled Bangladesh before its victory in December 1971 returned to Bangladesh during General Ziaur Rahman’s regime in 1978, travelling on a Pakistani passport. Initially he kept his activities limited to party programs.
In 1981 when Ghulam first appeared publicly to attend a janaza at Baitul Mokarram Mosque of two Bangladeshis who died in Palestine, some people beat Ghulam with their shoes to express their hatred and disgust towards the infamous war criminal.
A picture of Ghulam’s face and head being beaten with shoes was published in a newspaper the following day.
After Ghulam died Saturday night at the age of 92, many people celebrated his death and some demanded that he not be buried in Bangladeshi soil, because he spent his life against this country and was loyal to Pakistan.
Some people in Ghulam’s home district of Brahmanbaria announced that they would prevent any attempt to bury his body in their district.
Ghulam’s family has decided to bury him at the family graveyard in Moghbazar in the capital, an area known to be a den of Jamaat activism as its headquarters, newspaper offices and other offices are located in this area.
