Staff Reporter :Authorities of Dhaka Central Jail have taken all preparation to hang death row convict Jamaat Chief Motiur Rahman Nizami.Sources said, he will be hanged in anytime on Tuesday night for his crimes against humanity during the country’s Liberation War in 1971 after completing all legal procedures, in line with the International Crimes Tribunal verdict.Home Minister Asaduzzaman Kamal told The New Nation in the evening that the order to hang Nizami was sent to the central jail authorities as he did not seek for presidential clemency. Nizami, 73, became the fifth convicted war criminal hanged for atrocities during the War of Independence since the war crimes trial process began six years ago.A former minister in the then BNP-Jamaat led four-party coalition government, Nizami had been in jail since 2010, when he was arrested to be tried for his crimes committed during the Liberation War. Meanwhile, the authorities stepped up security in and around the Dhaka Central Jail as well as across the country. Roads leading to the central jail were blocked with barbwire barricades after the evening. Additional policemen were deployed around the jail and heavily armed Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) personnel were also dispatched there to prevent any violence or subversive act.BGB convoys were also patrolling the city’s key intersections and roads as part of enhanced security measures. Nizami was given capital punishment by the International Crimes Tribunal in October 2014 after being convicted of mass murder, rape and orchestrating the killing of intellectuals during the Bangladesh’s war of Independence. Prosecutors said that he was responsible for forming pro-Pakistani Al-Badr militia which killed top intellectuals, including writers, doctors and journalists, in the most gruesome chapter of the war.Their bodies were found blindfolded with their hands tied and dumped in a marsh at Rayer Bazar in Dhaka.As the Al-Badr chief, Nizami had ordered the killings designed to “intellectually cripple” the nation.The Supreme Court (SC) cleared the last hurdle for execution of Nizami on Thursday after rejecting his final appeal against the original death sentence handed down by the an International Crimes Tribunal in October 2014.Officials read the SC’s verdict to Nizami on Monday night after he was brought to Dhaka Central Jail from Kashimpur prison, senior jailor Jahangir Kabir told reporters. Twenty-six family members of Nizami visited him at the Dhaka Central Jail at 7:55pm riding three cars after the jail authorities called them up to meet the death row convict. Two sons of Nizami, his wife and a grandchild were among them. They came out from the jail after two hours and left the place without saying any anything.
