Dhaka: Family members of top fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party leader Muhammad Quamaruzzaman on Monday met him in jail ahead of his impending execution after he lost his final bid to overturn his death sentence for the 1971 war crimes.
The 63-year-old assistant secretary general of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami met his wife Nurun Nahar and 15 others, including her sons and daughters and other relatives inside the high security Dhaka Central Jail, where he has been kept since February 18.
The prison authorities had dispatched a letter to his house at Mirpur area here to meet him at the jail, hours after the Supreme Court rejected the Jamaat leader's final bid to overturn the sentence, following which the family reached the premises this evening.
They arrived on a microbus and left after an hour.
Earlier, the Jamaat leader's son Hasan Iqbal told bdnews24.Com that they were told to meet Quamaruzzaman at 5 pm for a last visit before his sentence was to be carried out. However, the family members were one-and-a-half hours late.
The Jamaat leader's last resort could be a presidential mercy. But he has not sought it so far, The Daily Star reported.
If the verdict is carried out, Quamaruzzaman will be the second Jamaat leader after Quader Mollah to be executed for the 1971 offences.
Bangladesh in 2013 had witnessed violent protests and counter protests when the tribunal pronounced its initial verdict on Quamaruzzama.
Witnesses said the security of the jail had been beefed up. Meanwhile, jail authorities were awaiting the copy of the Supreme Court order to execute Quamaruzzaman.
