Staff Reporter :
Law Minister Anisul Huq on Wednesday said, the government will take further initiative to amend the relevant law for holding trial of Jamaat-e-Islami as an organisation on the charge of committing war crimes in 1971.
“The law will be amended as per instruction from the Prime Minister,” the Minister said this while talking to reporters at his Secretariat office after he was accorded a reception by the Law Ministry officials and staff.
The previous Awami League government took an initiative to amend the law for holding trial of Jamaat as an organisation involved in committing crimes against humanity, but the process could not be completed during its regime.
The investigation agency of the International Crimes Tribunal on January 1 expressed discontent as trial of Jamaat-e-Islami as a party did not begin even five years after completion of a probe about its role in 1971.
The Law Minister added that a separate commission would be formed to identify the conspirators behind the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the four National leaders in jail.
Meanwhile, six convicted fugitive killers of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman hiding abroad are yet to be brought back home despite the government’s special efforts.
The six fugitives are Colonel (dismissed) Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Lieutenant Colonel (relieved) Shariful Haque Dalim, Major (retd) Noor Chowdhury, Major (retd) Rashed Chowdhury, Captain Abdul Majed and Risaldar Moslehuddin Khan.
On the other hand, more than 14 years have passed since a trial court handed punishment to 11 perpetrators for the killing of four national leaders inside the erstwhile Dhaka Central Jail, but their sentence is yet be implemented.
The government could not even trace nine of them despite making strong efforts through diplomatic channels, intelligence agencies and the Interpol to bring the fugitives home.
Convicted killers Rashed Chowdhury and Noor Chowdhury are hiding in the USA and Canada respectively and the government has failed to bring them back.
Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmad, AHM Quamruzzaman and M Mansur Ali were shot dead after repeated bayonet charges in the jail.
The leaders were put behind bars soon after the August 15, 1975, bloodbath that claimed the lives of Bangabandhu and most of his family members.
