Bangladesh's fundamentalist Jamaat-e- Islami leader and media tycoon Mir Quasem Ali was buried in
the wee hours on Sunday (Sept 4) in his ancestral village in Manikganj after a funeral prayer following his execution on Satruday (Sept 3).
Mir Quasem, 63, widely considered as the top financier of the Jamaat, was hanged at the high-security Kashimpur Central Jail on the outskirts of the capital at 10:30 pm on Saturday (Sept 3).
Three ambulances, one of which carried his body left Kashimpur prison after 12:30 am. A Fire Service car, six vehicles of RAB and police and three other cars were escorting them when they left the jail premises, Bdnews24 reported.
Mir Quasem's relatives had already reached Manikganj'sChala village to prepare for the burial.
Police did not allow outsiders to enter the village.
Mir Quasem was the sixth Islamist to be executed for war crimes committed during the country's 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan. His execution came after he refused to seek presidential clemency.
Hundreds of Liberation War veterans and war crimes trial campaigners rallied at Dhaka's Shahbagh Square and rejoiced at the execution of the last of the high-profile perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
Mir Quasem was the infamous pro-Pakistan Al-Badr militia's third most important figure. He was convicted of running Al Badr's torture cell that killed several people.
Three million people were said to have been massacred in the war by the Pakistani army and their local collaborators.
Mir Quasem was the convenor of NGO Rabita al-Alam al- Islami's Bangladesh chapter when he started playing some role in Jamaat's politics in 1980. He later went on to become its
director.
He was a former vice-chairman of Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited and chairman of the now-closed Diganta Media Corporation, believed to be pro-Jamaat.
Mir Quasem owned several business houses and media outlets including a now suspended TV channel and was a central executive council member of Jamaat-e-Islami.
He pumped billions into the Jamaat since the mid-1980s to put it on a firm financial footing in Bangladesh.
His hanging comes nearly four months after Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami was executed. Before him, five war crimes convicts had been executed since Bangladesh initiated a trial process in 2010 for the 1971 war criminals. Of the five executed war crimes convicts, two had sought presidential clemency which was rejected.
