In Bangladesh, the International Crimes Tribunal set up to look into the war crimes committed during the 1971 war of Liberation will begin proceedings on Monday in the first petition filed by the prosecution in a case against Jamaat-e-Islami Chief Matiur Rahman Nizami and three others. The tribunal fixed the day for hearing after the prosecution submitted a petition on Sunday seeking its order to show the four Jamaat leaders arrested in a case for committing crimes against humanity. Chief Prosecutor Golam Arif Tipu told reporters in Dhaka on Sunday that they have petitioned the tribunal seeking an order to keep them in detention to facilitate smooth investigations into the allegations of the Jamaat leaders having committed genocide, looting and arson during the war of liberation. The four leaders which include Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami, Secretary General Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojahid and senior assistant secretaries general Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdul Quader Mollah have already been arrested for their alleged involvement in other cases including a case of sedition and are presently in police remand or in prison. The four have been accused in a case filed with the Pallabi Police Station on charge of killing 345 freedom fighters in Mirpur during the Liberation War in 1971. AIR Dhaka Correspondent reports, four months after the formation of the International crimes tribunal in March this year, the tribunal is all set to begin proceedings. This is the first time in Bangladesh’s judicial history that a court will be taking up a case to show a person arrested under the International Crimes Tribunal Act, 1973 for crimes against humanity. The prosecution case petition against the Jamaat leaders has been Listed as Miscellaneous Case 1. The three-member tribunal headed by Justice Nizamul Huq will hear the petition at 10:30 am local time this morning in the open courtroom specially set up at the old High Court building in Dhaka. According to a report of the 1971 Liberation War museum in Bangladesh an estimated 3 million Bengalees were killed while 2 million women were raped and 10 million people were displaced during the war period making it the worst genocide after the Second World War. The hearing of the petition will mark the beginning of the trial proceedings to bring to justice the perpetrators of war crimes during the 1971 Liberation war.