Former Jamaat-e-Islami chief Ghulam Azam, who died at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital on Thursday night, will be buried at his family graveyard at Kazi office lane at Moghbazar in the city today (Saturday).
Ghulam Azam’s son Abdullahil Aman Azmi, in a press briefing in front of their Moghbazar residence on Friday evening, said he himself would lead the namaz-e-janaza at Baitul Mukarram National Mosque after the juhr prayers.
Ghulam Azam, 92, who was serving a 90-year imprisonment awarded by the International Crimes Tribunal-1
in July 2013 for the war crimes he had committed in 1971, had been under treatment at the prison cell of BSMMU hospital since January 11, 2012, the day he was arrested.
Several gayebana janaza were held on Friday after juma prayers at Jamaat’s strongholds in Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna and Chapainawabganj, reports received from the districts said.
Ghulam Azam’s body has been kept in a mortuary van on the premises of his residence since Friday morning when it was taken there from Dhaka Medical College Hospital where his autopsy was conducted.
Azmi received his father’s body from the jail authorities at DMCH around 7:15am. As soon as the body arrived at his residence, several thousand leaders and activists of Jamaat and Islami Chhatra Shibir gathered there.
His body was kept there for 20 minutes in the morning for public view and again after juma prayers.
Towards the end of juma prayers at the mosque adjacent to his residence, the mosque’s imam described the war crimes convict as a ‘great leader’ of Islamic movement. A special prayer session was held there.
The police cordoned off nearby Elephant Road and Quazi Office Lane at Moghbazar.
Security was heightened across the capital and large contingents of police were deployed in front of Jamaat’s central office, different mosques, Moghbazar, Ramna, Kakrail, Paltan and High Court areas as a precaution, police sources said.
Abdullahil Aman Azmi told reporters that some of his five brothers living abroad were expected to arrive in Dhaka before the burial.
Azmi on Thursday night said his father had asked them to have his namaz-e-janaza conducted either by war crimes convict Delwar Hossain Sayedee or by Jamaat chief Matiur Rahman Nizami who is also in jail facing war crimes charges.
Ghulam Azam’s lawyer M Tajul Islam in the morning told reporters that the family might apply for release of Nizami and Sayedee on parole.
The Awami League-led alliance spokesperson, Mohammad Nasim, talking to reporters at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office on Friday opposed the idea of the two Jamaat leaders’ release on parole.
Tajul, however, in the evening, said they were not going to seek Nizami and Sayedee’s parole as Ghulam Azam’s family found it unrealistic.
Jamaat’s acting chief Mokbul Ahmad and acting general secretary Shafiqur Rahman, in a statement on Friday, alleged that the government had kept Ghulam Azam in prison in a ‘false case.’
Bangladesh Online Activists’ Forum, Jatiya Ganatantrik League and Quazi Aref Foundation at a rally in front of the National Press Club on Friday afternoon demanded that Ghulam Azam’s body be sent to Pakistan as he was the mastermind of Al-Badr, Al-Shams and Razakar Bahini which collaborated with the Pakistani occupation forces in committing war crimes, including genocide, arsons, looting and rapes in the name of ‘unity of Pakistan.’