[DAWN] Bangladesh war crimes Sherlocks moved Tuesday to outlaw the country's largest Islamic party, accusing it of genocide and other atrocities during the 1971 bloody struggle for independence.Government Sherlocks handed a report detailing war crimes allegations against Jamaat-e-Islami
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The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka
The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an
independentbranch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
to prosecutors, in the latest move against the party which has banned from contesting January elections.
"We want total dissolution of the party," the government's chief war crimes investigator Abdul Hannan Khan told news hounds.
"Jamaat and its wings took the decision to act as auxillary forces of the Mighty Pak Army in committing atrocities in the 1971 war. So the party cannot avoid its superior responsibilities," Hannan said.
Hannan said prosecutors from the country's controversial war crimes tribunal would now proceed with charges against the party which would lead to a trial in the same tribunal.
"The whole nation has been waiting for this trial. It is the first time after the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials that a party is to be prosecuted for war crimes," Hannan said, comparing Jamaat to the Nazi party.
The tribunal, set up by the secular government in 2010, has already convicted more than a dozen of Jamaat's leaders over crimes allegedly committed during Bangladesh's war against Pakistain for independence.
A senior Jamaat leader was executed in December after his conviction, sparking a fresh wave of deadly protests by Islamist supporters.
Protesters have repeatedly clashed with police over the tribunal, which Islamists claim is aimed at eradicating its leaders, leaving more than 200 people dead since last January when the verdicts were first handed down.
Jamaat, a leading opposition party, was banned from contesting general elections held in January this year which were boycotted by other opposition parties and marred by bloodshed.
The country's top court ruled last August that Jamaat be banned because its charter followed Islamic law that conflicted with the nation's official secular constitution, although the party was allowed to hold rallies.
There was no immediate comment from Jamaat but the party has earlier accused the country's government of organising show trials in an effort to destroy it.
Prime Minister
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
's government says three million people died in the war, many at the hands of pro-Pakistain militias led by Jamaat leaders who opposed secession from Pakistain on religious grounds.