Dhaka: Pakistan’s top rights activist Asma Jahangir has criticised the Pakistan government for demonstrating ‘disproportionately high passion’ against the execution of two top war criminals in Bangladesh.

The response sent a message that the government of Pakistan had extraordinary love and affection for the opposition members in Bangladesh than its citizens, Jahangir told reporters at the Supreme Court on Monday, reports Pakistan’s influential daily the Dawn on Tuesday.

‘Equal passion, we hope, will be shown by the government’ for the people on death row in Pakistan than being hanged elsewhere in the world by denying due process,’ she said.

The human right activist was reacting to the response by Foreign Office and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan expressing anguish and concern over the execution of BNP leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhry and Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed.

Jahangir said Pakistan should first take up the issue of capital punishment through unfair trials here and of those Pakistanis who were being consistently executed in Saudi Arabia and then show disproportionately high passion for the politicians of Bangladesh.

She said the government was only confirming the fact that two men were ‘political agents’ and working for the cause of Pakistan.

Are these two Bangladeshi more important than the people living in Pakistan, she asked. If the answer is in the affirmative, the government should also explain why and what for.

She was of the opinion that the hangings in Bangladesh would further deepen the divide and haunt its politics in the future. She said that all human rights activists who monitored these trials agreed that due process had not been given to the two accused.

‘We’ve condemned the unfortunate developments and even given out urgent appeals to the Amnesty International and other international human rights organisations in this regard,’ she added.

Jahangir admitted the two politicians had been executed without affording due process, but regretted that the same right was being denied to the people facing trial in military courts on terrorism charges.

‘We’re against the death penalty and unfair trials whether in Pakistan, Bangladesh or elsewhere,’ she said, adding that everybody knew that the trial of the two Bangladeshi politicians was flawed, but the role of Pakistan was something which was not understandable.

‘If they (Pakistan government) are against the death penalty or the undue process, they should look into the trials being conducted by the military courts,’ she said.

Asma Jahangir is a founding member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and has served as Secretary-General and later Chairperson of the organization.

She served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief from August 2004 to July 2010.