BD accuses Pakistan of interference in internal affairs

Summons Pakistani diplomat to lodge protest

DHAKA: Bangladesh on Sunday summoned Pakistan’s acting high commissioner to protest its alleged interference in its internal affairs after Islamabad said it was “deeply saddened” by the execution of a top Islamist party figure for ‘atrocities’ committed during the war to leave Pakistan.

Mir Quasem Ali, 63, a key financier of the Jamaat-e-Islami, was executed on Saturday at the Kashimpur Central Jail on the outskirts of the capital after accusing him of murder, confinement, torture and incitement to religious hatred during the war.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply saddened” by Quasem Ali’s execution, describing the proceedings of the war tribunal as “flawed”.Since December 2013, five prominent Jamaat members, including Quasem Ali, and a leader of the main opposition party, have been executed for alleged war crimes.

Relations between the two countries have never recovered from the 1971 war when Bangladeshi nationalists, backed by India, broke away from what was then West Pakistan. The Jamaat denies that its leaders committed any atrocities.

“By repeatedly taking the side of those Bangladesh nationals who are convicted of crimes against humanity and genocide, Pakistan has once again acknowledged its direct involvement and complicity with the mass atrocity crimes committed during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971,” Bangladesh said in a statement.

“The government of Bangladesh strongly rejects Pakistan’s claim that these are recriminations for political gains’.”Critics say Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has used the war crimes tribunal, set up in 2010, to target Jamaat and weaken the opposition. The government denies the accusations.

International human rights groups say the tribunal’s procedures fall short of international standards but Bangladesh rejects that and the trials are supported by many Bangladeshis.In January, a Bangladeshi diplomat in Pakistan was expelled in what Dhaka officials called “an act of retaliation” after a Pakistani diplomat in Dhaka was expelled for alleged spying.