I’m astonished at what the deposed Awami League government had in mind as it left the last legal battle of convicted war criminal ATM Azharul Islam pending for five years and let Jamaat-e-Islami claim the trial farcical now!

The Supreme Court’s Appellate Division rejected his appeals against the death penalty pronounced by the International Crimes Tribunal on October 31, 2019. The review petition, filed by the convict on July 19, 2020, has yet to be heard.

According to the apex court’s recent decision, the hearing may be held on February 25. Former Jamaat leader Barrister Abdur Razzaq, who represented the top war criminals of Jamaat hanged after legal proceedings, is leading a team of Jamaat-backed lawyers, including Shishir Monir, to take part in the hearing.

Barrister Razzaq left Bangladesh on December 18, 2013, and resigned from Jamaat in 2019. He later formed the AB Party with former Jamaat-Shibir leaders and was assisted by a section of civil society and journalists. After the fall of the Awami League in August, the self-exiled lawyer returned to Bangladesh in December.

In 1971, Carmichael College student Azhar formed an armed group of 70 personnel. He became the al-Badr commander of Rangpur only at the age of 19 while holding the post of the district unit Islami Chhatra Sangha, now Islami Chhatra Shibir. He collaborated with the non-Bengali Biharis and the Pakistani Army to butcher the freedom fighters and supporters of the Liberation War, including Hindu teachers of his college and their wives.

Death in Charge No. 2: Azhar and his accomplices helped the army personnel commit looting and arson in Badarganj and killed 14 unarmed civilians on April 16, 1971.

Death in Charge No. 3: The same gang, together with the troops, killed over 1,200 unarmed Hindu villagers near Jharuar Beel and abducted 200 others. They also looted before burning down the houses.

Death in Charge No. 4: On April 30, Azhar led an al-Badr team and the Pakistani Army to abduct four professors and the wife of a professor from the Carmichael College campus and shot them to death near Damdam Bridge.

Five years in Charge No. 6: In mid-November, Azhar tortured Shawkat Hossain Ranga of the city’s Guptopara for chanting the Joy Bangla slogan. Subsequently, Ranga’s brother and college unit Chhatra League activist Rafiqul Hassan Nannu was abducted and tortured at the Shaheed Muslim hostel of the college.

Azhar fled to Saudi Arabia in December, sensing the defeat of the Pakistani occupation forces. He returned to Bangladesh after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in a military coup by pro-Pakistani elements in 1975. Azhar later resumed politics after General Ziaur Rahman withdrew the ban on religion-based politics and freed the war criminals facing trial.

During his arrest on August 22, 2012, Azhar was the acting secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami.