Dhaka youths protest Islamabad move on war criminal

Several thousand youths and pro-liberation people protested outside Pakistan high commission in Dhaka on Wednesday after the Pakistan parliament passed a resolution expressing concern over the execution of a war criminal Abdul Quader Molla, who is a senior leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.

Molla was found guilty for genocide, murder and rape incidents took place in Dhaka during the 1971 Liberation War. Jamaat as a party and its leaders supporters collaborated with the Pakistani occupation army who imposed the war on March 25, 1971.

We hate the war criminals who are top leaders of the so-called Islamist party. But because of patronisation by some statesmen including Ziaur Rahman and his party and another military dictator HM Ershad, they now have become business tycoons and Islamic clerics in the 90% Muslim majority country which has Islam as the state religion.

Such audacity from a country which committed heinous crimes in 1971 is unacceptable. Taking the side of a war criminal is nothing but a snob gesture at a time when the trials resumed after 1975, and both Pakistan and the Jamaat are yet to apologise officially for the misdeeds they had done against the people supporting the birth of Bangladesh.

We demand that Jamaat is declared ban in Bangladesh, Jamaat and Pakistan are compelled to apologise, the 195 Pakistani army officers who were not tried by that government be brought to book, all diplomatic relation with Pakistan be severed and urge the people to boycott all sorts of Pakistani products.