Dhaka (AsiaNews) - Late last night a Bangladesh court ordered the hanging of Kamaruzzaman Mohammad, leader of the Islamic fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami Party, who had been sentenced to death in May 2013 for “genocide". The man, vice president of political group, refused to seek a presidential pardon after the Supreme Court’s confirmation of the death sentence, last April 6, 2015.
The Islamic leader, 62,was held responsible for crimes committed during the war of liberation from Pakistan in 1971, including the killing of at least 120 unarmed peasants in Sohagpur, in the north of the country. During the trial three widows testified against him, describing how he led the Pakistani troops to the village and helped the soldiers to put the peasants in line to shoot them.
Several hundred people greeted news of his hanging with celebration on the streets of Dhaka, while some Jamaat activists burned two vehicles. The fundamentalists were also behind two small handmade explosives – which caused no victims - and the assault on a bus in the capital. Today, the same party has declared a hartal, a general strike across the country to protest against the execution.
