What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
© Vladimir Adityanath
Bangladesh Supreme Court has acquitted Razakar Azharul Islam, overturning his death sentence by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) for committing war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War.
The ICT had sentenced him to death for
1) Raping 13 Hindu women
2) Abducting 17 Hindus (mostly Hindu intellectuals and women).
3) Murdering at least 1276 Hindus between March and December of 1971.
Student groups like the Democratic Students Alliance in Dhaka University and left-leaning student groups Rajshahi University are already protesting against the apex Court verdict declaring the senior Jamaat-e-Islami leader cum terrorist as innocent.
Known atrocities committed by him :
1) Accompanied the Pakistan army during their attack on Moksedpur village on 16.04.1971, killing unarmed Hindu civilians, looting and burning down their houses.
2) Used to run a rape camp in Rangpur between March and December 1971, where he abducted, tortured, confined and repeatedly raped his victims.
3) Led an attack on the Hindu-dominated villages of Jharuarbeel on 17.04.1971, killing at least 1200 Hindus. Was involved abduction, large-scale arson and genocide.
4) Accompanied by the Pakistani Army, he abducted 4 Hindu Professor and 1 of their wives from the Rangpur Carmichael College from inside the college premises on 30.04.2025. All of them were brutally murdered
5) He was also involved in the assault, abduction and torture of the brother of a youth, who chanted Joy Bangla in late 1971.
Azharul Islam was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to death by the ICT in December 2014. The Supreme Court (of Bangladesh) had initially upheld the conviction on 23rd October 2019.
The same Supreme Court had acquitted him of all the charges in May 2025, after hearing a judgement review petition filed on July 19, 2020, for nearly 5 years.
The law advisor to the unelected interim Government of Bangladesh, Asif Nazrul, had called his acquittal as one of the outcomes of a regime-change operation orchestrated in July and Early august of 2024.
