Expats shocked as Dhaka hangs top Jamaat leader

The Bangladeshi community expressed shock and dismay over the execution of top Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Mollah, 65, on Thursday.
The senior leader was hanged for massacres committed during the country’s bloody 1971 war of independence, making him the first person to be put to death.
Musharraf Hossain, a Bangladeshi who works in a publishing house, said it was a great shock for him. “The deceased was such a good person and people adored him for his devoted political cause,” he said, lamenting that his country has lost a great son of the soil.
Abu Saeed, who works in a cargo office, said this is “political vendetta.” “ Sheikh Hasina manipulated the whole case to kill this great man who was loved by everyone for his piety and dedication toward serving the community,” he said. He added that thousands of people both living in and outside Bangladesh are weeping over this idiotic execution “which has exposed the stupidity of cheap politicians.”
Earlier, Deputy Law Minister Quamrul Islam told AFP: “The execution has been carried out.”
He added that Mollah was hanged at 10:01 p.m. (1601 GMT) in a jail in Dhaka.
The hanging took place just hours after the country’s Supreme Court dismissed Mollah’s appeal for a final review of his death sentence, removing the last legal option against his execution.
The wife and children of Mollah met the Jamaat-e-Islami leader at a jail in Dhaka for one last time hours before the execution, and found him to be “calm.”
“He has told us that he is proud to be a martyr for the cause of Islamic movement in the country,” Mollah’s son Hasan Jamil told AFP.