Terror was reborn
Though his crimes have finally caught up with him, war criminal Mir Quasem Ali in the last four decades established himself as a top businessman in Bangladesh. He emerged as a leading business tycoon of the very country, the birth of which he vehemently opposed in 1971.
Quasem not only dodged the trial for the crimes he committed during the nine-month-long Liberation War, but also reorganised anti-liberation elements following the political changeover in August 1975.
It was under his leadership that the hideous Islami Chhatra Sangha, the then student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, of 1971 re-emerged as Islami Chhatra Shibir in 1977. Since its inception, Shibir was dreaded for its atrocities, and last year was ranked the third most active non-state armed group in the world by a US-based defence think-tank.
When the victims of his heinous crimes and their family members were crying for justice, they unfortunately had to see the dramatic rise of Quasem in the country's political and business arenas. He fully owns and has shares in a large number of business firms, media outlets, charities and social organisations. Through these institutions, he allegedly financed Jamaat activities.
Quasem also represents several foreign charities in Bangladesh and allegedly channelled huge sums of money to his party instead of serving the stated purposes of the charities.
However, yesterday's verdict might have brought some relief to the justice seekers.
The International Crimes Tribunal-2 sentenced Quasem, the chief of Chittagong Al-Badr, an auxiliary force of the Pakistan army, for killing, torturing and confining pro-liberation people in Chittagong in 1971.
Quasem was born to Mir Tayeb Ali and Rabeya Begum in Munsidangi Sutalori of Manikganj on December 31, 1952. He got involved in Chhatra Sangha in 1967 while studying at Chittagong Collegiate School.
Later, he became president of Chhatra Sangha's Chittagong College and Chittagong town units. On November 6, 1971, he became the general secretary of its East Pakistan unit, according to prosecution documents. The defence didn't dispute these facts.
As a top leader of Chhatra Sangha that turned into Al-Badr in 1971, he became the chief of the infamous force in the port city and set up several torture camps in Chittagong town during the Liberation War, the prosecution said.
Quasem, along with his aides, abducted pro-liberation people and persecuted them inside torture camps like Dalim Hotel, Dowsta Mohammad Panjabee Building and Salma Manzil Torture Cell, before killing them, according to prosecution witnesses and documents.
After the war, Quasem went into hiding. He not only averted arrest and trial but also pursued his education in the capital, just three years after the independence. He got his Bachelor of Arts degree from a Dhaka college in 1974 and master's from Dhaka University.
After the country's liberation on December 16, 1971, the government banned five communal parties including Jamaat-e-Islami. This resulted in the halt to Chhatra Sangha's operations.
But following the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975, anti-liberation elements got a strong footing in the country. Thanks to the backing provided by the subsequent rulers, the infamous enemies of the country's independence got the chance to resurface even before their mother organisation, Jamaat. In 1977, Chhatra Sangha changed its name into Islami Chhatra Shibir and started their operation in Bangladesh, according to prosecution documents.
And Quasem, being at its helm, shouldered the responsibility to reorganise his fellows under the new umbrella.
According to a book titled Ekattorer Ghatak O Dalalra Ke Kothay published in 1987, there was no difference between Islami Chhatra Shibir and Islami Chhatra Sangha except for the name. Everything else, including the flag and the monogram, remained the same. The prosecution used the book as evidence in several war crimes cases in the tribunals.
From the rebirth, Shibir started strengthening its organisation at mosques and educational institutions. In the 1980s and 90s, it became infamous for the ferocity of its attacks in turf wars on university campuses. Severing the tendons of rival activists was its signature torture style, earning the organisation the nickname "Rog Kata Shibir" over the last three decades.
In February last year, soon after the pronouncement of the war crimes verdict against Jamaat leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee, Shibir activists jointly with Jamaat men unleashed terror across the country.
Throughout 2013, they hogged the headlines by beating up policemen, torching public vehicles and properties and killing people, exploding bombs, felling trees on roads and uprooting railway tracks. In addition, they allegedly ran smear campaigns online against the war crimes trials and instigated religious violence.
Their violent activities were reflected in the IHS Jane's Global Terrorism & Insurgency Attack Index 2013 which said Shibir was the third most active non-state armed group in the world last year, just behind Barisan Revolusi Nasional of Thailand and the Taliban.
Quasem joined Jamaat in 1980 as an activist, when he was the coordinator of Rabeta Al Alam Al Islami, an NGO. He became a member of Jamaat's Shura council in 1985. Though Quasem now is in the 18-member central executive council of Jamaat, the party's highest policy-making body, he is best known as "the moneyman" of his party.
The 62-year-old had been busy trying to save his party and its top-brass when the Awami League-led grand alliance government set up the special tribunal in 2010 to try war criminals.
Quasem paid $25m to an American lobby firm to carry out smear campaign to make the war crimes trials questionable and controversial, the then law minister Shafique Ahmed told the parliament in April last year.
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