As soon as slapped with the costs of crimes towards humanity dedicated throughout Bangladesh’s Liberation Conflict in 1971, Jamaat-e-Islami chief ATM Azharul Islam walked free out of jail on Wednesday following the Supreme Court docket’s acquittal of his dying sentence.
The apex courtroom made this choice on Tuesday, overturning the dying sentence given by the Worldwide Crimes Tribunal (ICT) of Bangladesh to Azharul Islam, resulting in fury amongst a number of within the violence-hit South Asian nation, in line with native media experiences.
Jailed for almost 13 years for struggle crimes, Azharul was acquired by occasion leaders and activists on the jail gate by his radical supporters. Following this, he went straight to a rally on the Shahbagh intersection.
That is the primary occasion when a struggle crime convict has been acquitted by way of a evaluation petition for the reason that fall of the previous Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League authorities on August 5 final yr in a violent mass rebellion, Bangladeshi media outlet UNB reported.
Outraged by Azharul’s acquittal, clashes broke out between left-leaning scholar activists and Jamaat’s scholar wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir members at Rajshahi College (RU) on Tuesday night time, leaving a minimum of 10 injured, native media reported.
Stories counsel that violence erupted when the leftist scholar teams holding a torch procession protesting the acquittal of Azharul have been confronted by violent Chhatra Shibir members. This led to stone-pelting between the 2 teams.
RU Chhatra Union President Rakib Hasan alleged that the supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami, below the banner of Anti-Shahbagh Alliance, attacked the procession organised by the Democratic Scholar Alliance.
“The Democratic Scholar Alliance known as for the torch procession to protest the acquittal of Jamaat chief Azharul, which they imagine undermines the 2024 mass rebellion. Throughout the march, round 200 Shibir activists launched a sudden assault on our group of 12 to 13 folks. We have been attacked thrice, leading to accidents to virtually all of us, with 4 struggling critical accidents,” the main Bangladeshi newspaper, The Enterprise Commonplace, quoted him as saying.
“Virtually everybody in our torch procession was injured. 4 of our leaders bear seen harm marks. We strongly condemn and protest this assault following the decision,” mentioned Fuad Ratul, convener of the Socialist Scholar Entrance.
In August 2012, he was arrested at his residence in Dhaka’s Moghbazar on fees of crimes towards humanity and remained in custody. In December 2014, the ICT sentenced him to dying on 5 out of the 9 fees.
Azharul was discovered responsible of orchestrating mass killings, abduction, and torture within the better Rangpur space, the place over a thousand folks have been massacred in 1971.
Stories counsel that the chief of the Islamist occasion tortured folks, set ablaze a whole bunch of homes, and dedicated different atrocities throughout the Bangladesh liberation struggle.
Difficult the decision, Azharul filed an enchantment in January 2015. Nonetheless, the Appellate Division, below a bench led by then-Chief Justice Syed Mahmud, upheld the dying sentence in October 2019.
After the complete verdict was revealed on March 15, 2020, he submitted a evaluation petition, which the Supreme Court docket accepted.
The Appellate Division, after listening to the evaluation petition, granted go away to enchantment on February 26, 2025 and directed the submission of the case abstract which was subsequently submitted.
After listening to the enchantment, the courtroom delivered its remaining judgment on Tuesday, acquitting Azharul of all struggle crime fees.