Leaders blast comments of Golam Azam

Leaders of different political parties and forums yesterday condemned the audacious comments of Jamaat-e-Islam chief Prof Golam Azam and demanded his trial in a special tribunal, reports BSS.

They said there is no problem for trial of the war criminals of 1971 under the Constitution and the law of the land.

Prof Azam has dared to utter such imperious comments to BBC on Thursday that he could escape the net for his misdeeds in 1971 due to soft stand of the previous governments, they observed.

Giving reaction to BSS, Hasan Imam, Convenor of the Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Jatiya Samannaya Committee, demanded of the government to try Golam Azam and other war criminals in a special tribunal.

He urged the government to file a case with the Hague-based International Court for trial of all other war criminals including the Pakistanis who unleashed atrocities on the freedom-loving people.

Imam said in the absence of a special tribunal no individual lodged a case against Golam Azam to help him sneak out through the loopholes of the existing laws.

The Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee in its mass trial in 1992 gave the verdict that the crimes of Golam Azam during the War of Liberation were punishable by death and asked the then government to execute the verdict, he said.

Chairman of the Central Command Council of Muktijoddha Sangsad Principal Ahad Chowdhury said Golam Azam is showing this unusual courage as he did not face trial for his crimes in the previous regimes.

He strongly demanded of the government to set up a special tribunal to try the war criminal and take initiative to get other war criminals tried in the International Court.

Workers' Party General Secretary Rashed Khan Menon said the demand for trial of war criminals is not new and it is very much possible under the constitutional ambit and the existing laws.

All parties except the Jamaat in the fifth parliament reached a unanimous consensus that the war criminals must stand trial, he said. "I remember, the then Deputy Leader of the House Prof. B Chowdhury read out the text of the consensus in the House," Menon said.

Golam Azam cannot deny that he helped, supported and inspired the Pakistani army for genocide in 1971, which is historically recognized, Menon said, adding that there is no scope to evade the charges.

Deputy leader of the opposition in parliament Prof. B Chowdhury told BSS, "Nobody should have any objection if the constitution and the law of the land are properly enforced to settle an issue." "But these must not be used intentionally against a certain person," Prof Chowdhury added.

In an interview with the BBC radio yesterday, Golam Azam questioned why he was not tried for the last 18 years. He told the interviewer that despite filing cases against him nobody could make him an accused during his stay in the country since 1978.