A top leader of fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party in Bangladesh today lost his final bid to overturn his death sentence for war crimes committed during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan, forcing authorities to step up security fearing protests.

The Supreme Court upheld its previous verdict on Muhammad Quamaruzzaman, rejecting his plea for reviewing death penalty.

“Rejected”, pronounced Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, a day after the four-member apex court heard the review petition of Jamaat’s 63-year-old assistant secretary general.

After the verdict, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said that there is no legal bar for the government to execute Quamaruzzaman for his crimes against humanity following the judgement.

He said Quamaruzzaman now could seek presidential clemency within a “logical timeframe”.

Authorities called out paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) to enforce a nationwide security vigil to prevent possible violent protests by Jamaat activists.

“The BGB troops will enforce a vigil with regular law enforcement agencies like police and RAB (Rapid Action Battalion),” a home ministry spokesman told reporters.

Bangladesh in 2013 had witnessed violent protests and counter protests when the tribunals pronounced its initial verdict on Quamaruzzaman.

Alam earlier said the ‘Jail Code’ which gives an ordinary death row convict a minimum 21 days for preparedness to walk to gallows were not applicable for condemned war criminals as they are tried under a special law beyond the purview of laws like the Criminal Procedure Code.

Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in May 2013 sentenced Quamaruzzaman to death for committing crimes against humanity siding with the Pakistani troops during the 1971 liberation war.

Quamaruzzaman was found him guilty of mass killing, murder, abduction, torture, rape, persecution and abetment of torture in central Mymensingh region.

He was convicted of killing 164 people at a village in his home district in northern Sherpur.

The Supreme Court on November 3 last year upheld his death penalty. The apex court, however, issued the full text of the judgement on February 18 and sent it to the ICT, which immediately issued a death warrant.

But Quamaruzzaman on March 5 filed a review petition, exhausting his last option.

About three million people were killed by the Pakistani army and their Bengali-speaking collaborators during the liberation.

Bangladesh is trying alleged war criminals in the country’s International Crimes Tribunal under a special law.

Since Bangladesh launched the war crimes trial, the two special tribunals, set up by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s secular government in 2010, have handed down death penalties to 13 people.

Only one of them, Jamaat’s joint secretary general Abdul Quader Mollah so far has been executed to far.

The upholding of Quamaruzzaman’s execution order could escalate the ongoing unrest in the country, which has been hit by deadly protests over the opposition’s bid to topple the government led by Prime Minister Hasina.

Opposition parties say the war crimes trials are politically-motivated.

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