Published: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 Pak cabinet talks about Ghulam Star Report The Ghulam Azam issue appears to have been exercising minds in Pakistan’s political circles of late. In his column in the issue of the Urdu language newspaper Jang yesterday, Hamid Mir reveals that at a cabinet meeting last week, the Ghulam Azam case came up for some intense discussion. The columnist reports that a senior minister in the Nawaz Sharif government expressed the view that since the Jamaat leader had fought for Pakistan in 1971, the government of Pakistan should protest what he called the injustice being meted out to Ghulam in Bangladesh. His views were opposed by another senior minister, who stated that by associating with the generals of the Pakistan army in 1971 in the killing of Bengalis, Ghulam Azam had waged war against Pakistan. The army and Azam, he said, had nullified the results of the general elections and had gone into action against the party which had won the elections (the Awami League) and were therefore guilty of waging war against Pakistan. At that point another minister spoke up for Ghulam Azam, but then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did not think it prudent to carry on the discussion. It thus came to an end. On July 15, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 in Dhaka sentenced Ghulam to 90 years in prison for masterminding genocide and other wartime offences in 1971. The ex-Jamaat chief, 91, was found guilty on all five charges the prosecution stacked against him, according to the verdict. The judges said Ghulam deserved the gallows but he was given prison terms due to his old age and health. On July 19, the Pakistan foreign office said that war crimes verdicts were Bangladesh’s internal matter.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 10:39:38 +0000
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