The Case of Jamaat-e-Islam’s Leader Nizami
By Abdullah Al-Ahsan
On January 30, 2014 Matiur Rahman Nizami was handed the death sentence by a Bangladesh court for smuggling arms to facilitate insurgents in neighboring India. For years, the political situation in Bangladesh has been marred by deaths in imprisonment, in police custody, in the streets, and in people’s houses.
After the 1971 war for Bangladesh’s independence, it is in recent years that we have witnessed the highest number of politically motivated violent deaths, at some points in time averaging one death per day. The vast majority of the casualties are leaders and activists of the two main opposition parties, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islam (BJI).
Bangladesh is not a stranger to political deaths, as often street protests in the country go violent. However, under the current government, political turmoil has had some added features.
For example, firing live bullets upon the street protesters and killing and maiming hundreds of them, arresting opposition activists and their subsequent deaths in the name of “cross-fire” or “encounter,” and forced disappearances and the subsequent murders of opposition leaders and activists in such large numbers were previously not part of the political culture of Bangladesh.
Targets: Opposition, Women, and Army
During the time of the incumbent government, hundreds of opposition people have been killed, thousands maimed, and thousands more are languishing in the country’s prisons or in hiding or on the run.
According to the BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia, in January 2014 alone 242 people were killed by government forces and 60 were subjected to forced disappearances. A petition has lately been lodged with the International Criminal Court in the Hague for an independent investigation of the ongoing human rights violations in Bangladesh (Click here for more details).
Earlier, immediately after coming to power in January 2009, the government attempted to contain the army heavy-handedly. As a result, in frightful, tragic, and mysterious circumstances, 57 brilliant army officers and many of their family members were cold-bloodedly murdered in Pilkhana — which is at the heart of capital city — within a span of two days. It is widely believed that a big neighboring country stretched its hands to unleash the mayhem with a view to weakening the Bangladesh armed forces which is perceived to be independent minded.
The government did not take any effective measure to protect those lives or to rescue the female members of their families from rape and sexual assaults. Some of the narratives of those wanton murders and the crazed sexual aggression available in social media are unspeakably horrendous. After the harrowing tragedy of Pilkhana, the government sent many army officers to forced retirement and rendered many others ineffective.
After cowing the armed forces and taking preemptive measures to emasculate them, the government turned its repressive gaze, authoritarian apparatus and genocidal potential to cripple the opposition parties.
Because of a subsequent long-drawn and heavy-handed repression on the opposition parties, especially BNP and BJI, analysts say that over a thousand activists have been killed by the ruling party and government forces. In the traditionally vibrant political culture of Bangladesh, there now pervades a dead silence as not many opposition protesters dare to take to the street for fear of becoming death casualties.
Politically-motivated Death Verdicts
In terms of the number of casualties and political prisoners, the BJI is the worst sufferer. While hundreds of its leaders and activists have been killed, almost all its topmost leaders are incarcerated on various charges, especially crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the 1971 war. BJI leaders deny any such charges and have repeatedly said that these are politically motivated.
On December 12, 2013, Senior Assistant Secretary General of BJI Mr. Abdul-Quader Mollah was executed on the charge of war crimes, while some other senior BJI leaders are in death row.
The chief of BJI, Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami, is also imprisoned with the charge of war crimes and the verdict may be delivered any day. While the verdict for his alleged war crimes related case was pending, a lower court in Chittagong gave him the death sentence for an arms haul case on January 30, 2014.
In the previous civilian government (2001-2006), BJI was a coalition partner with BNP and Mr. Nizami became Minister of Agriculture and then Minster of Industries. During his tenure as the Minster of Industries, on April 2, 2004, the police intercepted huge amount of arms and ammunitions at one of the jetties of the Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd (CUFL) in Chittagong. These were allegedly being transferred through Bangladesh and were meant for the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), an Indian freedom movement fighting for the independence of Assam.
However, it has never been disclosed from where the arms and ammunitions came. A day after the incident, Mr. Ahadur Rahman, Officer-in-Charge of the local police station of Karnaphuli in Chittagong filed First Investigation Report (FIR) where Mr. Nizami was not mentioned, nor was he charge-sheeted at that time.
However, in February 2008, about four years after the incident when an army-backed interim government was in power, the Chittagong Metropolitan Judge’s Court ordered a fresh investigation to further probe into the cases following a petition from the state prosecution.
Subsequently, an intelligence police officer named Muniruzzaman Chowdhury who was also the fifth investigation officer of the case submitted two charge sheets in June 2011 and added 11 more suspects including Mr. Nizami. In the January 30, 2014 verdict, all these 11 people who held important positions during the 2001-2006 BNP-BJI administration were given the capital punishment. Such death sentences are unprecedented in any arms smuggling case. All the convicts have said that the verdict was politically motivated.
Nizami’s Case
The main reason why Mr. Nizami has been sentenced to death is that he was the minister of industries at the time when the arms haul was intercepted and he allegedly failed to carry out his responsibility.
Another high profile convict is Mr. Lutfozzaman Babar who was the state minister for home affairs at that time. Since both of them were in the government during the time of the incident, if they were involved in the arms smuggle, logically they would have used their ministerial influence to make sure that it was not seized on its way by the police. Especially, Mr. Babar was known to have exerted disproportionate influence on the police, as the police department was under the jurisdiction of his home ministry. However, neither Mr. Babar nor Mr. Nizami is known to have exerted any influence in the matter.
As regards Mr. Nizami, he has been given the death sentence for not launching an investigation into the arms smuggle. It was based only on two prosecution witnesses’ statement. They claimed that few days after the interception of the arms haul they met Mr. Nizami with a request to form an enquiry committee for investigation; but Mr. Nizami did not comply, stating that such an enquiry committee was not needed since the government had already formed a higher level inquiry committee.
Conceivably, it was not Mr. Nizami’s responsibility nor was it within the remit of his role as the minister of industries to form an enquiry committee to investigate the incident. It is true that the smugglers used a jetty of the Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd (CUFL) which is under Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC). However, the BCIC functions as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Industries and its chairman is accountable to the ministry’s secretary, not to the minister.
More importantly, there are two jetties at CUFL, one is inside the CUFL boundary and exclusively for its use. The other jetty is open to the public and is patrolled by the local police and not by the CUFL security personnel. The jetty that was used to unload the arms on April 2, 2004 morning was the one open to the public. So although Mr. Nizami was the minster of industries at that time, he cannot be implicated for not forming an enquiry committee because BCIC was not under his direct jurisdiction, and secondly the jetty used was not exclusively controlled or monitored by the BCIC administration.
In view of the pros and cons of the case, it is widely believed that the death sentence verdict against Mr. Nizami is politically motivated and intended to execute leaders of BJI one after the other and thus to further weaken the opposition forces in today’s unstable Bangladesh.
Uncontrollable Consequences
It is feared that Mr. Nizami may be another scapegoat. Like Abdul-Quader Mollah who was sentenced to death and executed for crimes he did not commit. In the district of Mirpur in Dhaka city during the 1971 war, there was a butcher named Quader who was known as Koshai Quader. He was thought to be responsible for many deaths in the area during the 1971 war. Although Abdul-Quader Mollah was not in Dhaka during the 1971 war and he never visited Mirpur before 1973, all the alleged crimes of Koshai Quader were put on Abdul-Quader Mollah who was subsequently executed on December 12, 2013.
After the death verdict against Mr. Nizami, BJI called a country-wide daylong strike. If the government decides to execute Mr. Nizami, BJI people may defy government repression, take to the streets, and get engaged in clashes with the police, which may eventually result in more deaths.
What is more, apart from Mr. Nizami and Mr. Babar, most of the other convicts sentenced to death in the arms haul case are former military officers, which can be seen as part of the government’s persistent tactic to undermine the defense forces. Their possible execution may create further discontent in the rank and file of the country’s military establishment.
Unfortunately events in Bangladesh are not receiving international media coverage. This is perhaps because of the strong support the current administration in Bangladesh receives from neighboring India.
The administration also seems to have learned from the Egyptian experience that eliminating opponents, particularly if they are “Islamist,” wouldn’t result in severe repercussions for the powers- that- be. That is why the government staged an election on January 5, 2014 with negligible turnout. However, one must not forget that in history such unjust conduct have resulted in unprecedented violent consequences.
Dr. Abdullah al-Ahsan is Vice-President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST)
Malaysia.
28 February 2014.