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Butcher of Mirpur hanged

Mollah first to walk gallows for war crimes 42 years back, to be buried at Faridpur village home under police protection

Wasim Bin Habib and TUHIN SHUBHRA ADHIKARY
The digital display showed 10:01pm at the Dhaka Central Jail gate. The entire nation had waited long for this moment.
It was the moment when Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah walked the gallows, barely four days before the nation celebrates Victory Day.
Around 42 years back, Mollah didn't wince even once and neither did his heart skip a beat when he led his men to thrash a two-year-old child to death and slit the throats of a pregnant woman and two minor girls.
In the first-ever execution in a war crimes case last night, the 65-year-old Jamaat man finally paid for these acts of cold-blooded savagery.
The hanging of Mollah, who earned the nickname Mirpurer Koshai (butcher of Mirpur) for his sinister role during the Liberation War, represents a watershed in the nation's pursuit of a closure on the wounds inflicted in 1971.
The Jamaat leader was taken to the gallows around 5 to 6 minutes before his execution by Chief Hangman
Shahjahan Bhuiyan, said jail sources.
"He (Mollah] was hanged at 10:01pm. His body was kept dangling for 20 minutes to confirm his death," Dhaka District Magistrate Sheikh Yusuf Harun told The Daily Star.
An ambulance carrying Mollah's body went out of the prison under police protection at 11:15pm and headed for his village home at Sadarpur upazila in Faridpur.
Arrangements were made to bury Mollah in his village home, Abu Hena Morshed Zaman, deputy commissioner of Faridpur, told The Daily Star
at 10:15pm.
The Jamaat leader was executed hours after the Supreme Court rejected his petition to review the death sentence, bringing an end to the drama that had played out for two days since Tuesday evening.
Mollah's counsels took out an order from the SC chamber judge on Tuesday night to stay his execution only one and a half hours before he was to hang at 12:01am.
The apex court yesterday rejected Mollah's plea for reviewing his death sentence, clearing the way for the
execution of the condemned war criminal.
In an instant reaction after the execution, Shafiuddin Mollah, who testified against the Jamaat leader, told The Daily Star, "We are very happy. Much of the grief and agony that have weighed on us for the last 42 years will go now."
Shafiuddin, who lost his paternal uncle in a massacre at Alubdi village in Mirpur, said they would feel happier when all 1971 war criminals get their due punishment.
He thanked the prime minister and
all pro-Liberation War forces for their continuous efforts to bring the war criminals to justice.
Mozaffar Ahmad Khan, the first prosecution witness in the war crimes case, said," Our efforts to bring the war criminals to book have finally seen some success. As a freedom fighter, I am very happy today."
Mollah, then leader of Islami Chhatra Sangha, later renamed Islami Chhatra Shibir, never expressed remorse over the war crimes he committed 42 years ago. His party also SEE EDITORIAL SEE PAGE 2 COL 1