A court on
Monday summoned former Jamaat-e-Islami chief Golam Azam, incumbent chief Motiur
Rahman Nizami, secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammed Mujahid, BNP leader
Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury MP and 32 others to appear before it and face
alleged charges of war crimes.
The court of Dhaka ninth
additional district judge Iftekhar Ahmed also asked them to explain by July 20,
why they would not be declared war criminals and disqualified from contesting
any election in Bangladesh for the alleged crimes they had committed during
Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971.
The court order came following a
civil suit, filed by three lawyers on November 13, a month before the general
elections last year, for declaring the accused war criminals and ineligible to
contest elections in Bangladesh.
The chief election commissioner,
Election Commission secretary and Dhaka deputy commissioner were also made
defendants in the case.
The court also issued the
directives to Maulana A K M Yusuf, Maulana Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, Abdul Kader
Molla, Meer Kashem Ali, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Muhammad Kamaruzzman, Khaja
Khairuddin (dead), Md Abdul Alim, Mohammad Ali, A S M Solaiman (dead), Fazlul
Quader Chowdhury (dead), Julmat Ali Khan, Kazi Kader (dead), Shah Mohammad
Azizur Rahman (dead), A B M Khaled Majumder, A N S Yusuf, A Q A Safiul Islam,
Abdul Matin, Advocate Mohammad Ainuddin (dead), Goalm Sarwar, Maulana Abdus
Sobhan, Captain (retired) Abdul Based, Abdul Matin Bhuiyan, Md Abdur Rahman,
Obaidullah Majumder, Engineer Abdul Jabber, Barrister Korban Ali (dead), Ashraf
Hossain, Advocate Ansar Ali, Md Kaiser, Abdul Majid Talukder and A K M
Mosharraf Hossain.