by military officers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in August 1975, Ziaur Rahman became president in a coup in 1977. He permitted top Jamaat leaders, such as Ghulam Azam and Nizami, to return to Bangladesh in 1978; they revived the Jamaat party, which became the largest Islamist party in the country. Nizami emerged as a key leader of the Jamaat, organising the Islami Chhatra Shibir (Jammat Students Organisation), which serves as the youth wing of the Jamaat. In 1991, he was elected as a Member of Parliament, representing Jamaat-e-Islami for the constituency of Pabna-1; he was Jamaat's Parliamentary Party leader until 1994. During the 1996 elections, he lost to the candidates of both the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), an ally of Jamaat, and the Awami League in his constituency. Professor Abu Sayed of the Awami League gained his seat. In 1971, Nizami was a chief of the infamous Al-Badr militia. Along with the Pakistan Army, this militia abducted and massacred 989 Bengali intellectuals including professors, journalists, litterateurs, doctors and pro-Bangladesh activists in general. Leader of Jamaat-e-Islami Nizami took over as the leader of Jamaat from Ghulam Azam in 2001. In the same year, representing his party as part of a four-party alliance including BNP, Nizami won a seat in Parliament in Pabna-1, receiving 57.68% of the votes. From 2001 to 2003, he served as the Minister of Agriculture, then as the Minister of Industry from 2003 to 2006. Nizami was defeated in the December 2008 general election as a candidate of the Four-Party Alliance, losing his seat for Pabna-1 to Md. Shamsul Haque of the Awami League. Nizami received 45.6% of the votes. The Awami League took two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. Controversies Allegations of corruption In May 2008, the Anti-corruption Commission of Bangladesh indicted Nizami in the GATCO Corruption case, in which he along with several other politicians were alleged to have illegally granted a container-depot contract to the local firm GATCO. A warrant was issued to arrest Nizami along with 12 others on 15 May 2008. Nizami was charged with conspiring with 12 other politicians to award the contract to GATCO although the company did not meet the conditions of the tender. The prosecution alleged that the deal with GATCO caused a total loss of more than 100 million Bangladeshi Taka to the Government. Nizami denied the charges and said they were politically motivated. He was released after