By Brian Lanciault

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

DHAKA, Bangladesh–Bangladesh has hanged notorious opposition leader Abdul Quader Mollah over war crimes allegedly committed during the country’s 1971 war of independence.  Mollah is the first person to be put to death for massacres committed during the bloody struggle.

Abdul Quader Mollah, 65, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party, was hanged on December 12, 2013 around 10 am in a jail in the capital, Dhaka, government officials reported.

The case against Mollah has contributed to escalating political tension in Bangladesh less than a month before elections are expected to take place. Jamaat-e-Islami is barred from contesting elections but plays a key role in the opposition movement led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Security was tight around the jail where Mollah was hanged. Extra police and paramilitary guards were deployed on the streets of Dhaka. Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered at a major intersection in the city to celebrate the execution.

Moqbul Ahmed, JI’s acting leader, said in a statement on the party’s website that people would revenge Mollah’s execution by deepening the role of Islam in Bangladesh. The party called a nationwide general strike for Sunday.

While a strong reaction to the decision from JI was expected on the streets of Dhaka, the city remained relatively calm.

However, tensions escalated, and protests broke out across the country.  At least five people were killed earlier near the port city of Chittagong as clashes broke out between opposition activists and police over the weekend.

On Monday, clashes in the southeastern district, Satkhira, resulted in the deaths of five people, killed as police attempted to quell the violent protests.  Since the execution, JI members have taken to the streets, some wielding homemade bombs, and lodged attacks against security personnel.  So far, 25 people have died in the wake of the hanging.

Party activists also clashed with police, torched or smashed vehicles, and set off homemade bombs in the cities of Sylhet and Rajshahi, TV stations have reported.

Scores of people were injured in the latest violence to hit the South Asian country, which has seen weeks of escalating tension as it struggles to overcome extreme poverty and rancorous politics.

In eastern Bangladesh, security officials opened fire to disperse opposition activists, leaving at least three people dead and 15 others wounded, Dhaka’s leading newspaper reported.

Violence spread to Laxmipur district, a few miles east of Dhaka, during a nationwide opposition blockade after elite security forces raided and searched the home of an opposition leader following the execution.

The Supreme Court passed the order of a review petition filed by Mollah against its verdict, awarding him the death penalty for his wartime offences. He had originally been due to be hanged on Tuesday, his lawyer said, but the court delayed the execution to re-consider his latest petition.

His original life sentence had been overturned by the Supreme Court in September, after mass protests called for him to be hanged.

A panel of five judges led by Chief Justice Mohammad Mojammel Hossain rejected the petition after hearing arguments on the appeal against the death penalty, a state prosecutor said.

Mollah is one of five opposition leaders sentenced to death by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), set up in 2010 to investigate atrocities during the 1971 conflict. The conflict is marked by over three million deaths.

Critics of the tribunal say it has been used as a political tool by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is locked in a political feud with BNP leader Begum Khaleda Zia, as a way of weakening the opposition ahead of January elections.

“The execution of… Mollah should never have happened,” said Abbas Faiz, Amnesty International’s Bangladesh researcher. “The country is on a razor’s edge… with pre-election tensions running high and almost non-stop street protests.”

But many Bangladeshis support the Court, believing that those convicted of war crimes should be punished, underlining how the events of 42 years ago still resonate in the deeply divided nation of 160 million people.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera– Bangladesh hangs opposition leader— 12 December 2013

LA Times– Five die in Bangladesh clashes over hanging of opposition leader— 16 December 2013

CBS News– Bangladesh opposition leader’s execution sparks deadly riots— 13 December 2013

New York Times– Opposition Leader’s Execution Spurs Protests in Bangladesh— 12 December 2013