Executions draw criticism

Bangladesh executed two influential opposition leaders on charges of war crimes during the country’s 1971 independence war, a senior jail official said Sunday, despite concerns that the legal proceedings against them were flawed and threats of violence by their supporters. Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, 66, and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, 67, secretary general of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, were “hanged together” at 12:55 a.m. at Dhaka Central Jail, said Jail Superintendent Mohammad Jahangir Kabir. Security was strengthened near the jail and elsewhere to avoid violence. The Jamaat-e-Islami party issued a statement calling for a general strike Monday.