Call to investigate ‘judicial murders’ in Bangladesh

ISLAMABAD: Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior, Senator Rehman Malik, has demanded of the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission to set up a high-powered commission to investigate what he called judicial murders of Jamaat-i-Islami leaders in Bangladesh.

In a letter to Prince Zeid Bin Ra’ad Al-Hussein, the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the UN, Mr Malik demanded of the UNHRC to take notice of the `judicial murders’ of Bangladesh JI leader Ali Ahsan Mojaheed and Bangladesh National Party leader Salauddin Chowdhary.

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“The UN should nominate a high-powered commission to visit Bangladesh and investigate the murder of these two political leaders,” Mr Malik said in the letter.

“The high commissioner must take serious notice of the matter and exercise his powers under the Human Rights Charter of the UN to stop `judicial murder’ for political gains and revenge,” he said.

He said that the people of Pakistan had noted with concern these unfortunate executions and they were also concerned over the silence of the international community over this ongoing ‘flawed’ trials in Bangladesh relating to events of the 1971 war.

The senator said that the government of Bangladesh was taking revenge from those political leaders who had expressed their loyalty to their own country (Pakistan) at that time and had resisted the Indian involvement in their internal affairs.

He said that the allegation of involvement of executed pro-Pakistan political leaders of Bangladesh in war crimes was fabricated and unjust as they were not involved in war crimes, but it was in fact Mukti Bahini, sponsored and supported by India, which had committed such crimes.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2015