Several left-leaning student organisations, including Bangladesh Students’ Union, on Tuesday staged a protest rally protesting at the acquittal of Bangladeshi Jamaat-e-Islami leader and former alleged Al-Badr commander ATM Azharul Islam who was charged with war crimes.
Leaders and activists of the left student organisations brought out a protest procession from the Madhur Canteen area at about 5:00pm that paraded the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Institute of Business Administration before ending with a brief rally at the base of the Anti-Violence Raju Memorial Sculpture.
At the rally, protesters chanted slogans such as ‘Interim government, the guardian of genocide’, ‘Enemies of 1971 are enemies of Bangladesh’, and ‘Hasina and Azhar, both traitors of the War of Independence’.
Bangladesh Students’ Union general secretary Shimul Kumbhakar said, ‘This government, founded on the blood of martyrs, has betrayed us.’
Under this regime, incidents of mob beating, violence, and the release of 1971’s war criminals are being normalized, Shimul added.
He also said, ‘Those who collaborated with the Pakistani Army and opposed Bangladesh’s independence would not be allowed to engage in politics here.’
Jabir Ahmed Jubel, general secretary of the Revolutionary Student Unity, said, ‘The person who led the Al-Badr force in Rangpur and whose hands are stained with blood, has now walked free.’
He said, ‘It seems that you are handing over fruits of the student-led mass uprising to Jamaat.’
Jubel said that they would soon announce a broader movement to bring all collaborators to justice.’
SM Farhad, president of the Dhaka University unit of Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir, meanwhile, in a Facebook post on Tuesday celebrated the release.
In his post, SM Farhad wrote, ‘The first president of Chhatra Shibir’s Dhaka University unit, ATM Azhar Bhai, has been acquitted in the false case.’
The cases of Abdul Quader Molla, Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, Mir Quasem Ali, Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, Maulana Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, and other martyred leaders must also be reopened before the nation, he added.
The Appellate Division on Tuesday overturned both the 2014 International Crimes Tribunal verdict sentencing Azhar to death and its own 2019 ruling that had upheld the sentence, citing lack of evidence and failure to meet the required standards of proof.
