Kazi Zahidul Hasan :BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed have finally been hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on late Saturday night after the legal process ended.Both the war crimes convicts were executed at 12:55am (said Inspector General (Prisons) Brig Gen Syed Iftekhar Uddin) for committing crimes against humanity during the country’s Liberation War in 1971 amid beefed up security measures in and around Dhaka Central Jail.Two ambulance carrying bodies of Salauddin and Mojaheed went out of the prison under police protection at 2:52am and headed for their village home at Rawzan and Faridpur.Arrangements were made to bury Salauddin and Mojaheed in their village homes.The convictions were executed hours after the President Abdul Hamid turned down their mercy petitions for life.Salauddin and Mojaheed earlier in the morning filed mercy petitions to President Abdul Hamid admitting their crimes against humanity committed during the Liberation War, Law Minister Anisul Huq earlier told reporters at his Gulshan residence. 66-year-old Salauddin and 67-year-old Mojaheed have sought the presidential pardon as per their “constitutional right,” said the minister.A panel of seven experienced hangmen led by led by Shahjahan Bhuiyan executed both the war criminals in presence of IG Prison, Deputy Commissioner and Civil Surgeon of Dhaka, representative of DMP Commissioner, magistrates and concerned officials of jail authorities.Hangmen executed war criminal Salauddin and Mojaheed at 12:45am, according to the Central Jail officials.Both the war criminals were taken to the gallows around 5 to 6 minutes before their execution by chief hangman Shahjahan Bhuiyan.Before the execution, Salauddin and Mojaheed were bathed and Dhaka civil surgeon and two other doctors checked their health condition. The jail compound was lit with floodlights before their hanging.A Moulana also administered ‘Towba’ to them in presence of Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka and magistrates.Salauddin and Mojaheed were executed as the third and fourth war crimes convicts after Jamaat leaders Abdul Quader Mollah and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman since the ruling Awami League government in 2010 initiated the trial process to the war criminals.Earlier, Dhaka Central Jail authorities have asked war crimes convicts Salauddin Mojaheed families to meet them by 9pm.Their families reached Dhaka Central Jail in four cars around 9.15pm.The Appellate Division of Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday upheld death sentences of Salauddin and Mojaheed handed down to them by War Crimes Tribunals, rejecting their final review petitions.The verdicts however thwarted their last ditch legal efforts to escape executions.The apex court issued the full text of the judgement on Thursday and sent it to the authorities of Dhaka Central Jail.The war criminals Salauddin and Mojaheed on October 14 filed the review petitions to the SC, seeking acquittal on all the charges against them.Mojaheed was found to be a key mastermind of the massacre of the country’s top intellectuals just ahead of the December 16, 1971 Independence War victory. Chowdhury carried out atrocities particularly at his home district of southeastern Chittagong, leading a violent campaign against the Hindus.He was the chief of infamous Al-Badr force during the Liberation War.The International Crimes Tribunal-2 (ICT-2) on July 17, 2013 handed down death sentenced to Mojaheed for planning and killings of intellectuals including scientists, academics and journalists, and his involvement in the murder and torture of Hindus during the war.The tribunal found him guilty in five out of the seven charges and sentenced to death in two of them.Mojaheed was arrested on June 29, 2010 on charges of hurting religious sentiment and defying court orders. He was later shown arrested in the war crimes case on August 8. The tribunal indicted him on June 21, 2012. The Jamaat leader filed an appeal against the tribunal verdict with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on August 11, 2013. After a nine days hearing that and the hearing began on April 29 that year, the Appellate Division on June 16, 2015 delivered its judgement, upholding death for the Jamaat secretary general. The apex court also upheld his life sentence for killing composer Altaf Mahmud, Jahir Uddin Jalal, Badi, Rumi, Jewel and Azad at the Old MP Hostel at Nakhalpara in Dhaka.The court upheld his five years’ jail term for confining and torturing Ranjit Nath, a civilian, at a Bihari camp in Faridpur.Meanwhile, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 (ICT-1) on October 1, 2013 sentenced SQ Chowdhury to death for his crimes against humanity. The tribunal found Salauddin guilty of nine of the 23 charges brought against him of committing crimes against humanity.He was handed death penalty for four charges – involvement in the killing of Natun Chandra Singha, Awami League leader Mozaffar Ahmed and his son; and genocide in Raozan.Law enforcers arrested Chowdhury on December 16, 2010 at Banani in the capital in connection with torching a car in Moghbazar on June 26. He was shown arrested on December 19 following a warrant issued by the tribunal.He lodged appeal against his sentence on October 29, 2013 and the Appellate Division in its verdict on July 29, 2015, upheld the death sentence for him.
