Mufti Hannan wants to talk to his mother

Death row convict Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh (HujiB) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan has expressed a wish to speak to his mother Rabeya Begum over phone, his brother says after meeting him. “Hannan wants to talk to our mother over the phone. He told me that he wants to be buried at the village graveyard,” Ali Uzzaman told journalists at Kashimpur Central Jail in Gazipur on Wednesday. He said they had informed the jail authorities about his brother’s wishes. “They (jail authorities) have assured us that they will take necessary steps regarding his burial after meeting the high ups.” The notorious militant leader’s wife, two daughters and his elder brother met him in jail in the morning. His wife Zakia Parveen said her husband had requested everyone to pray for him. Hannan faces imminent execution after the president rejected his plea for mercy on April 8. Senior Jail Superintendent of Kashimpur Central Jail Mizanur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have been informed about Hannan’s wishes.” On March 19, the Supreme Court upheld death penalties for Hannan and two other HujiB men for the May 21, 2004, grenade attack at Sylhet’s Hazrat Shahjalal shrine targeting Anwar Choudhury, the then UK high commissioner to Dhaka. Three people were killed and more than 70 others, including Anwar, were injured. On February 23, Mufti Hannan sought review of an Appellate Division verdict that upheld his death sentence for the 2004 life attempt on Anwar. In December 2008, a Sylhet court sentenced the trio to death, and two others to life imprisonment for the attack. The High Court upheld the sentence in February last year. In February 2016, the death row convicts moved the Appellate Division which also upheld the maximum penalty. The Appellate Division’s 65-page full verdict was published on January 17. Hannan was also sentenced to death for the 2001 Ramna Batamul bombing that killed 10 people. Militant outfit HujiB was formed in 1992. It has so far officially carried out at least 14 attacks, killing more than 100 people in the pursuit of establishing Shariah Law in Bangladesh.