Jamaat-e-Islami calls for countrywide shutdown on Monday over Quasem's execution

Following the execution of Mir Quasem Ali, the infamous Al-Badr leader of Chittagong and the "moneyman" of Jamaat-e-Islami, the party today called an eight-hour-long shutdown across the country on Monday, protesting the execution of its leader.

The announcement was made in a statement, signed by the party's acting chief Moqbul Ahmad, reports the Daily Star.

The statement added that the party will hold Gayebana Janaza (namaz-e-janaza in absentia) and doa mahfil (offer prayers for the departed soul) throughout the country tomorrow.

Mir Quasem was on Saturday hanged for crimes committed against humanity during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

Senior jail superintendent of Kashimpur Central Jail, Proshanto Kumar Banik said the 63-year-old Jamaat-e-Islami leader was hanged from the noose at 10:30 p.m. yesterday.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan also confirmed the execution.

This is the first time a war criminal has been executed at the Kashimpur jail and outside Dhaka.

Quasem will be buried in his ancestral home in Manikganj's Chala village. He was the sixth war criminal hanged after 45 years of independence.

Earlier, five top war criminals were hanged for wartime atrocities. They included four leaders of the Jamaat, the party that opposed Bangladesh's liberation in 1971, and a BNP leader.