By Mizan Rahman/Dhaka


The International Crimes Tribunal yesterday took cognisance of the charge made against detained Jamaat-e-Islami assistant secretary general ATM Azharul Islam in a case of crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War. “After perusing the formal charge submitted by the prosecution and the relevant documents, it appears that there is a strong prima facie case against the accused under sections 3(2) and 4(1)(2) of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973. So, cognisance of the offence is taken against the accused,” said Justice ATM Fazle Kabir, chairman of the three-member tribunal.
Passing the order, the tribunal set August 18 for hearing charges against the Jamaat leader. The prosecution team said at the briefing that the charges include genocide of 1,225 people, murder of four, abduction of 17, one rape, abduction and torture of 12 and razing and looting hundreds of houses. All of these crimes took place in Rangpur region.
The charges said Azharul Islam was a student of Rangpur’s Carmichael College during the 1971 Liberation War.
He was the president of the Rangpur unit of Jamaat-e-Islami’s erstwhile student organisation Islami Chhatra Shangha (ICS) and the leader of the Al- Badr forces in the district.
He was directly involved in crimes against humanity as he planned, conspired and executed them with the Pakistani Army.
One of the key organisers of the Liberation War and National Awami Party leader AY Mahfuz Ali, an income tax lawyer by profession, was abducted and tortured along with 10 others in between March 24 and March 27 in 1971.
They were taken to Dakhiganj crematorium grounds on April 3 and killed, an assassination in which Azharul was involved in , the charges said.
The prosecution also alleged that the Jamaat assistant secretary general was implicated in killing 15 unarmed people and in looting and arson incidents at Rangpur’s Badarganj on April 16.
The investigation against ATM Azharul Islam had begun on April 15 last year. Investigators interviewed over 60 people during that time, but named 27 of them as witnesses.
The Jamaat leader was arrested on August 22 last year from his Moghbazar residence. Since then, he has been behind bars.
On July 18, the prosecution submitted formal charge before the tribunal accusing ATM Azharul Islam of committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War. The court also ordered the prosecution to pass all the case documents to the defence by August 18.
Earlier, the tribunal’s war crimes investigators submitted their investigation report on Azharul to the prosecution on June 8.
The Election Commission has finalised the proposed amendment to the Electoral Rolls Act 2009 to drop from the voters’ list those convicted of any offence under the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973.
A meeting of the commission approved the proposed amendment to the act, election commissioner Shah Nawaz who attended the meeting said in Dhaka yesterday.
He said that the commission proposed the amendment to the act in line with Article 122(2)(e) of the Constitution.  The article, reinstated by 15th amendment to the Constitution in 2011, stipulates that a person will be entitled to be enrolled on the electoral roll if he “has not been convicted of any offence under the Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order, 1972”. “As the 1973 act and the 1972 order are similar as far as their purposes are concerned, we have decided that the convicts of any crimes under the 1973 act will also not be eligible to be a voter,” Shah Nawaz explained.
He said that the Commission proposed amendments to Sections 9 and 13 of the Electoral Rolls Act 2009 to declare the convicts of any offence under the 1972 order or the 1973 act ineligible to be voters and to drop them from the electoral rolls.