ROW OVER SQ CHY, MUJAHID CLEMENCY PLEAS
Families made last ditch effort: Kamal
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday said a group of people and the family members of executed war criminals Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid had explored all possible avenues to save them from the gallows. Kamal said Salahuddins son, Hummam Quader Chowdhury, had tried his best to save his father. The minister also rubbished Hummams statement that his father had not sent a mercy petition to the President. Why would we move on it if they had not sought presidential clemency? Both Mujahid and Salahuddin wrote the petitions mentioning Article 49 of the Constitution. Salahuddin wrote the petition in English, he added.
He said the mercy petitions would not be made public. These are state secrets, he added.
About the Jamaat-e-Islamis strike call to protest against Mujahids execution, the minister said the people will not respond to the hartal and the country will move on in its own way.
Also yesterday, Law Minister Anisul Huq said a section of people and the family members of Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Muhammed Mujahid are creating confusion over the execution of the two war criminals to appease their instigators.
They are now spreading lies about the mercy petitions of the two war criminals, who were executed early on Sunday, the minister told reporters at his Secretariat office yesterday.
The two war criminals had sought presidential clemency under Article 49 of the Constitution. But the President rejected their mercy petitions and the jail authorities executed the court verdicts as per the law, he said.
The authorities concerned could have executed the death sentences even if they had not applied for presidential clemency, Huq said, adding that there is no use of trying to create a controversy over the issue.
The minister said the government would not make public the two mercy petitions without prior permission from the President.
