Ghulam Azam led procession in its support

A group of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders led by its former ameer Ghulam Azam brought out a procession in Baitul Mukarram mosque area in
Dhaka on April 14, 1971, supporting the Pakistan army crackdown on the unarmed people of Bangladesh.
Thousands of innocent Bangalees--many of them teachers and students of Dhaka University--were massacred during Operation Search Light, the beginning of genocide that continued throughout the nine months of the Liberation War.
Prosecutors revealed these facts before the International Crimes Tribunal yesterday in their opening statement in the case filed in connection with a commission of crimes against humanity by Jamaat-e-Islami Nayeb-e-Ameer Delawar Hossain Sayedee.
Chief Prosecutor Ghulam Arieff Tipoo and senior prosecutor Syed Rezaur Rahman took turns yesterday in submitting their 61-page, of a total of 88 pages, opening statement before the three-judge tribunal.
The tribunal, headed by its Chairman Justice Nizamul Huq, yesterday adjourned the hearing of the opening statement and fixed this morning for its continuation.
Prosecutor Syed Rezaur Rahman told the tribunal that Ghulam Azam, the then Ameer of East Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami, met Gen Tikka Khan, the then East Pakistan governor and martial law administrator, at the Governor's House in Dhaka on April 4, 1971, and assured him of all kinds of assistance to the Pakistan army in conducting genocide in Bangladesh.
Other rightwing leaders, including Nurul Amin, Foyez Ahmed, Khwaja Khairuddin and Hamidul Huq Chowdhury, went there with Ghulam Azam and proposed the formation of a Peace Committee before Tikka Khan, the infamous “Butcher of Baluchistan”, Rezaur said.
The prosecutor said the Jamaat leaders formed a 140-member peace committee with Khwaja Khairuddin as convener. Ghulam Azam was one of its organisers and assisted the occupation forces in their policy of repression.
The current central office of Jamaat-e-Islami at Moghbazar in Dhaka was then made the office of the peace committee, Rezaur said.
In May 1971, at the instruction of Ghulam Azam, his follower AKM Yusuf formed a Razakar Force with 96 Jamaat workers in Khulna, he said, adding that the Razakar Bahini, which had then spread out all over Bangladesh, committed atrocities such as mass killings, rape, looting, and arson.
Rezaur told the tribunal that Delawar Hossain Sayedee had committed crimes against humanity in association with the Pakistani occupation forces at different places in Pirojpur during the Liberation War.
The tribunal on October 3 framed 20 charges against Sayedee, including those of committing genocide, murder, rape, arson, abduction and torture.
At the beginning of the opening statement, Chief Prosecutor Ghulam Arieff Tippoo told the court that he had appeared before it with angst accumulated over time. “The trial is not for serving any political ambition or personal interest. It is rather for upholding the rule of law, democracy and human rights,” he told the tribunal.
He briefly described the background of the Liberation War and the genesis of the independence of Bangladesh in his statement.
On November 1, the prosecutors informed the International Crimes Tribunal that they had received five probe reports from investigators on the war crimes allegations against Ghulam Azam and four detained Jamaat leaders.
The tribunal on the same day directed the prosecution to submit formal charges against the four--Jamaat Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami, Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and assistant secretaries general Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Molla--by December 5.