LAHORE: Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq sees no difference between the views of Bangladesh Prime Minister Ms Hasina Wajid and those of rulers in Islamabad with regard to executions of “pro-Pakistan” leaders in the former eastern wing of the country.

Speaking at a JI demonstration on The Mall here on Sunday, held in protest against what the party calls oppression of Dhaka, he said the government of Ms Wajid was executing loyalists of Pakistan while the rulers in this country were playing “silent spectator”.

He regretted that Islamabad did not bother to move international forums on the executions in Bangladesh of those who had sacrificed their whole lives for Pakistan.

Had the government taken up the matter with the International Court of Justice in time, the lives of some of these people could have been saved, he added.

“The rulers are showing their indifference to deviation from the country’s ideology,” he said.

Mr Haq said the ruler’s talk of a “liberal” Pakistan was tantamount to rubbing salt into the wounds of the martyrs of Kashmir and Bangladesh.

He said because of the rulers’ indifference, as many as 45 people had been handed down death sentence in Bangladesh, while more than 4,000 others were languishing in prisons there.

An official in the Prime Minister’s House told Dawn that Nawaz Sharif had invited local JI leaders to discuss the stance Islamabad should take in the wake of first execution in Dhaka.

Later, during their meeting with the prime minister, the JI leaders, including Liaquat Baloch and Dr Farid Piracha, had said that Bangladesh leadership of their party (JI) thought any voice raised against the trial from Pakistan would go against them, therefore, Islamabad should act cautiously on the issue, the official claimed.

Mr Piracha, when contacted, denied the JI had suggested Mr Sharif not to raise the issue of executions with Dhaka or at international forums.

“We’d just said the JI must not be seen as lone protester in Pakistan as this could hurt the interests of Jamaat-i-Islami, Bangladesh.”

He said Mr Sharif had also agreed to the party’s view that the Foreign Office should not have declared the executions “an internal affair of Bangladesh”.

The prime minister had later got the FO statement negated through a statement by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar, he said, adding, “Mr Sharif did not do what was expected (of him) regarding getting implemented the tripartite pact signed in 1974 by Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, pledging not to try each others’ citizens for so-called war crimes”.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2015