LAHORE: The Jamaat-i-Islami observed black day on Friday against the capital punishment handed down to JI Bangladesh chief Motiur Rahman Nizami.

It organised protest rallies in the provincial capital as well as at district headquarters across the province after Friday sermon to condemn the tribunal verdict.

Speaking to the rally participants in Lahore, JI leaders, including Asadullah Bhutto and Hafiz Idrees, demanded Islamabad take up the issue of JI leaders’ trials for so-called war crimes in Bangladesh with Dhaka besides moving the Organisation of Islamic Conference and other international forums to stop what they said ‘mock trials’.

They said the patriotic people who had stood with united Pakistan during the war of secession in 1971 were being penalised by Haseena Wajid government in Bangladesh.

They lamented that the daughter of Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman was not allowing free access to lawyers to the JI leaders being tried by the government.

They demanded the agreement between Sheikh Mujeeb and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on the fate of war crimes should be presented before the United Nations as under the treaty Islamabad accepted to recognise Bangladesh as an independent country and in return Dhaka was not to set up war crimes tribunals and both the states were to release each others’ citizens.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2014