Pakistan grieves over execution of Bangladesh Islamist leader

ISLAMABAD, Dec. 14 (NsNewsWire) — Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has expressed deep grief and concern over the execution of Abdul Qadir Mullah, a leader of Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh.

Mullah was hanged on Thursday at a prison in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka over alleged war crimes in 1971, when Bangladesh separated from Pakistan as an independent country.

The Pakistani minister said since 42 years have passed since the 1971 event, executing Abdul Qadir Mullah is a very unfortunate and tragic step, adding some circles are declaring it a judicial murder.

Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami party on Friday staged demonstrations and condemned the hanging of Mullah. Speakers at the rallies described the execution as a murder.

“Till the very end before creation of Bangladesh, he remained supporter of a united Pakistan and today every Pakistani is saddened and grieved on his death,” Chinese Xinhua News Agency quote the minister as saying in a a statement Friday.

Khan said it was demand of international relations, solidarity of Islamic nations and wisdom that conditions and events of the past should be put behind and a new era should be started.

“But with this unfortunate incident, an effort is made to revive old wounds of the past.”

He said it would have been better if the Bangladeshi government had shown farsightedness, large heart and magnanimity instead of opening old wounds.