Published on 12:00 AM, May 12, 2016

Editorial

Nizami's end

Justice at last

Nizami was the highest ranking Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) leader to be hanged for crimes against humanity in 1971. With his execution, the stigma that we had been carrying for the last 45 years has been removed. 

He was the most notorious JI leader who organised and helped the Pakistani army to turn our country into a killing field. But for the help from people like Nizami and his killer gangs, the occupation army would have capitulated much sooner and without the aid of Nizami the atrocities of the notorious Al-Shams and Al-Badr militias could not have been let loose on the people of the land. And it is he who planned and carried out the killing of our brightest intellectuals.

It is a pity that these killers had been rehabilitated to places of honour in society. Indeed, we had to witness monsters like Nizami elevated to cabinet positions of a former government and preside over a very important ministry at one time. This was a slap on the face of a people who had fought and died for their independence and which men like Nizami had done everything to prevent. Regrettably, in the 45 years of our existence, neither Nizami nor any of the JI leaders and war criminals had ever expressed remorse much less seek forgiveness of the people. 

Justice has been served, albeit belatedly. And credit must go to the Prime Minister and her government for bringing the cohorts of the perpetrators of the most brutal atrocity since the Second World War to justice. We hope this will assuage the grieving hearts of the relatives of the victims, and some solace to the survivors, of his brutality.