LAHORE  - Reacting tersely to the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh leader Abdul Qadir Molla, Jamaat-e-Islami chief Munawar Hasan on Thursday appealed to the people to observe Friday as protest day against the Bangladesh government.
Funeral payers would also be offered in absentia for Abdul Molla on Friday (today) in various cities.
In their statements, Munawar Hasan and Liaquat Baloch called the execution a cruel decision of a so-called war tribunal. They said Pakistani rulers’ criminal silence on the issue was also condemnable. They said Bangladeshi premier Sheikh Haseena Wajid could not perpetuate her regime through such actions.  The JI leaders said if Pakistani rulers wanted they could have saved the innocent man by making public the agreements between former premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman. They said it was decided in the agreement that both the countries would not launch war cases against each other.
Hasan said Abdul Molla’s sacrifice would not go waste. He said he is a Shaheed-e-Pakistan. He also prayed that may Allah Almighty grant courage to the family of Molla and JI workers to bear this irreparable loss.  Baloch said JI leaders in Bangladesh were being punished for supporting Pakistan’s armed forces and their struggle to save the fall of Dhaka.  He said it was really shameful that the Foreign Office had termed the sentences to JI leaders an internal matter of Bangladesh when the pro-India BD government was victimizing people who had been loyal to Pakistan. Baloch said the JI Bangladesh was demanding an Islamic government in that country. The JI and other parties in united opposition there wanted Bangladesh to remain an independent state instead of a mere Indian colony.
He said the Islamic movements all over the world besides the government of Turkey and Sudan had strongly protested against Haseena Wajid’s policies and had called for end to victimisation of the Islamists. PPP leader Naveed Chaudhry also condemned the execution of Molla, saying the BD government should have to forget the past.