As the Jamaat-e-Islami enforces a countrywide 24-hour hartal from 5:00am today over the execution of its chief Motiur Rahman Nizami, the day's HSC and its equivalent exams have been shifted to May 20.

Mahbubur Rahman, chairman of Dhaka Education Board, said the exams on May 20 will begin at 9:00am instead of 10:00am in the first shift while the exams of the second shift will start at 2:30pm, reports UNB.

Nizami, the chief of the infamous Al-Badr Bahini, was executed early yesterday for wartime crimes, including killing of intellectuals and mass murders in Pabna during the Liberation War in 1971.

Jamaat called the hartal for what it said “protesting the state-sponsored killing of its leader”.

Meanwhile, the 73-year-old Jamaat chief was buried at his family graveyard at Monmothpur village under Santhia upazila of Pabna yesterday morning amid tight security.

The Jamaat ameer's body reached his village home around 6:20am. His son Nazibur Rahman received the body.

He was buried shortly after a funeral prayer, led by Nazibur, on the Monmothpur Madrasa premises around 7:00am. His relatives, locals and Jamaat men joined the prayer, reports our Pabna correspondent.

GAIBANA NAMAZ-E-JANAZA

Jamaat men offered gaibana namaz-e-janaza (funeral prayers in absentia) for its chief in different areas of the country, including at Baitul Mukarram national mosque in the capital after Zuhr prayers yesterday. Some Jamaat activists were seen flashing the victory sign while coming out of the mosque through the North gate after the janaza. Police units were deployed there.

In Rajshahi, activists of Jamaat and Islami Chhatra Shibir, pro-Jamaat student front, clashed with police near Hetemkha graveyard in the city after holding a gaibana janaza for Nizami, reports our Rajshahi correspondent quoting Iftekhair Alam, assistant commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police.

A man runs for cover with a child during the incident. Photo: Star

Law enforcers opened fire on unruly Jamaat-Shibir men when they attacked police with brick chunks. Police picked up five people from the spot, the RMP official added.