Record speaks loud about his deeds

In this photo taken on April 6, 1971, Ghulam Azam, far left, is seen at a meeting with Gen Tikka Khan of the Pakistan Army, sitting on the left of the large couch, and Nurul Amin, right, who was the chairman of Pakistan Democratic Party. This meeting led to the formation of Peace Committee that collaborated with the Pakistani occupation force.

Ghulam Azam began playing an active role in helping the Pakistani occupation forces even as the nation joined the armed struggle to free Bangladesh soon after the launch of a massacre by the Pakistani military on the night of March 25, 1971.
He was Ameer of East Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami before the Liberation War. Holding the same position he campaigned across Bangladesh and even in Pakistan (the then West Pakistan) in an attempt to foil the Liberation movement.
"Pakistan is the house of Islam for the world's Muslims. Therefore, Jamaat activists don't justify staying alive if Pakistan disintegrates," said Azam in a speech to mobilise his party men and followers against Bangladesh and help the occupation forces. (Source: Jamaat's mouthpiece the daily Sangram, 1971).
Azam is one of the front men who actively helped the Pakistani forces' attempts to foil the birth of Bangladesh. He was hyperactive against the Liberation War and became a symbol of war crimes in Bangladesh.
He met Pakistani General Tikka Khan, who was known as the "Butcher of Baluchistan", 10 days after the war started and earned the same title "butcher" as an architect of the genocide launched on the night of March 25, 1971 in Dhaka.
During the nine-month bloody war, Azam and his party Jamaat, its student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha (later renamed Islami Chhatra Shibir) actively played a key role along with their other political partners in their joint attempts to foil Bangladesh's independence struggle.
According to newspapers, including the Jamaat mouthpiece the daily Sangram and books and documents on 1971, Jamaat and its student wing played a key role in forming 'Peace Committees' and some other auxiliary forces like 'Razakar', 'Al-Badr' and 'Al-Shams'.
Throughout the nine months of the war, Jamaat, its student wing and the auxiliary forces actively helped the Pakistani military in mass killing, rape and atrocities, as history has so faithfully recorded.
The Pakistani forces and their Bangladeshi collaborators committed genocide and war crimes that left three million people dead and around a quarter million women violated, besides the planned elimination of some of the best of Bangali brains on December 14, 1971.
War records show that Jamaat formed 'Razakar' and 'Al-Badr' forces to counter the freedom fighters. 'Razakar' was established by former secretary general of Jamaat Moulana Abul Kalam Mohammad Yousuf, and 'Badr Bahini' included the Islami Chhatra Sangha activists.
Anticipating certain defeat, the occupation forces and their collaborators -- mostly leaders of Jamaat and its student front -- picked up leading Bengali intellectuals and professionals on December 14 and killed them en masse with a view to intellectually crippling the emerging independent nation.
Though Azam was the brain behind Jamaat's anti-liberation efforts, present Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami, president of Islami Chhatra Sangha in 1971, played a vital role in collaborating with the Pakistani junta in committing genocide.
Nizami, who is also behind bars on charges of war crimes, said, "Everyone of us should assume the role of a Muslim soldier of an Islamic state and through cooperation with the oppressed and by winning their confidence we must kill those who are hatching a conspiracy against Pakistan and Islam." (The Sangram quoted Nizami on September 15, 1971)
Azam and his party men and anti-liberation elements used to call the freedom fighters "miscreants", "Indian agents", "malaun" (a degrading, insulting term for Hindus), "infiltrators", etc.
On April 8, 1971, Azam issued a joint statement with other Jamaat leaders.
A book comprising an account of the killers and collaborators titled Genocide '71 quotes from that statement: "India is interfering in the internal affairs of East Pakistan. Wherever patriotic Pakistanis see Indian agents or anti-Pakistan elements and infiltrators, they will destroy them."
Genocide '71 also reads: "On June 18, on arriving at Lahore airport, Ghulam Azam spoke with journalists, stating that, in order to further improve the conditions in East Pakistan, he was going to provide some additional advice to the President [General Yahya Khan].
"However, he refused to elaborate any further on what sort of advice he was going to give. Regarding the situation in East Pakistan, he said: 'The miscreants are still engaged in destructive activities. Their main aim is to create terror and turbulence. These miscreants are being directed by Naxalities and left-wing forces.'"
On June 19, before Tikka Khan left for Dhaka, Azam met Yahya Khan. After his meeting with Yahya, he addressed a press conference in Lahore. He told journalists, "The miscreants are still active in East Pakistan. People must be provided with arms to destroy them."
Addressing Jamaat workers prior to the press conference, Azam said, "In order to prevent the disintegration of Pakistan, the armed forces had to be employed."
He further noted, "The recent tumult in East Pakistan is ten times greater than the 1857 Revolution in Bengal."
Speaking at a press conference in Peshawar on August 26, he said, "The armed forces have saved us from the treachery of our enemies and from the evil designs of India. The people of East Pakistan are lending full support to the armed forces in destroying miscreants and infiltrators."
On November 23, Yahya Khan declared a state of national emergency.
Azam welcomed this announcement. He told the press in Lahore, "The best way to defend ourselves is striking at our enemies." He stressed that in order to restore peace in East Pakistan, each patriotic citizen, each member of the Peace Committees, "Razakar", "Al-Badr", and "Al-Shams" must be armed with modern, automatic weapons.
At a meeting in Rawalpindi on November 29, he said, "There is no example in the history of a nation at war surviving without retaliation. Aggression is the best form of defence."
On December 3, he said in Karachi, "An East Pakistani should be in charge of the foreign office because it is only an East Pakistani who can cope with the 'Bangladesh tamasha', the Bangladesh farce."
Immediately after victory on December 16, 1971, Azam and many others like him fled to Pakistan and returned only after the brutal assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members in 1975.
After victory the first issues of newspapers of the new nation carried the government's decision to ban five communal parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami, on December 18 with immediate effect.
The banned parties were given the green light to do politics during the regime of late president Ziaur Rahman after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib.
Genocide '71 said, Soon after Ghulam Azam with a few of his followers went to Saudi Arabia, an advertisement, in the name of a false organization, appeared in several Middle Eastern papers. This advertisement proclaimed that "mosques are being burnt East Pakistan," Hindus are killing Muslims and destroying their property," etc. On the plea that Islam had to be saved, the advertisement appealed for contributions.
It also said, Ghulam Azam, in order to collect funds and to continue his campaign against Bangladesh, visited several countries of the region at this time, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Beirut, etc. After completing his tour of these areas, he left for London in April 1973.
Pakistani passport-holder Ghulam Azam returned to Bangladesh after 1975 in the name of visiting his ailing mother and became Jamaat's undeclared ameer. Another alleged war criminal late Abbas Ali Khan served for many years as the acting ameer.
Though he came to Dhaka on a three months' Bangladeshi visa during the time of President Ziaur Rahman in 1978, he never left Bangladesh.
In early1990s Azam was officially declared ameer of Jamaat, while Shaheed Janani Jahanara Imam launched a unique mass movement demanding the trial of the war criminals.
She held an unprecedented People's Court as a symbolic trial of Ghulam Azam where thousands of people gathered and the court pronounced a verdict to the effect that his offences committed during the Liberation War deserve capital punishment.
Azam's citizenship issue came into focus when he came to Bangladesh as a Pakistani national.
In 1991, the BNP formed the government with support from Jamaat and in 1992 Azam filed a case with the High Court to get Bangladeshi citizenship. The then government arrested him and put him in jail.
However, after Azam acquired Bangladeshi citizenship through a court order in 1994, the government released him from prison.
In 1998 BNP and Jamaat formed the four-party alliance and Azam appeared at a grand public meeting with BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia.
Azam, who was the brain behind Jamaat's anti-liberation efforts, left the party's top post in 2000 and was succeeded by Nizami.
Ghulam Azam has stayed out of focus since he disappeared from the open politics of Jamaat 11 years ago. He has been brought into the spotlight once again after yesterday's court order.