The demonstrators suspect that the life sentence is part of a secret deal the current prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed (a daughter of the nation’s assassinated founder) has made with Islamist leaders to preserve her power.

Jamaat belongs to an opposition coalition led by the Bangladesh National Party. There is widespread fear that if a new government comes to power in approaching parliamentary elections, it will pardon Mr. Mollah, Mr. Azad and other Jamaat members still facing trial — allowing the collaborators of 1971 go free once again. The current government has set a dangerous precedent: Since 2009, Ms. Hasina has pardoned some 20 death-row convicts, including hardened criminals charged with grisly murders.

Most of the young protesters in Shahbagh Square never lived under occupation or experienced the terror of midnight raids or the fear of rape, torture and wanton killing. But they are furious over government duplicity.

Years of kleptocratic rule, nepotism, corruption and abuse of power have eroded trust in government in Bangladesh. People feel that the system is so corrupt that change cannot possibly emerge in the electoral arena. That’s why hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis have gathered in the past month in a spontaneous movement that quickly spread across the country.

On Feb. 15, Ahmed Rajib Haider, a blogger and one of the organizers of the protest movement, was murdered. His throat was slit, his body mutilated — trademarks of Jamaat’s student wing. The protests swelled with anger and grief, but Shahbagh did not erupt into a frenzy of revenge. There were those who felt we were being naïve, that an eye for an eye was the only answer. But this was a gentle crowd — prepared to resist, but not to imitate.

Since then, there has been more violence. On Thursday, the protesters in Shahbagh rejoiced after the tribunal announced a death sentence for another Jamaat leader, Delawar Hossain Sayedee. Jamaat members have retaliated violently, leading to bloody clashes across the country.

Young kids baying for blood will make many justifiably uncomfortable. And no court should be forced to alter a verdict because of popular pressure.

But the protests in Shahbagh must be seen as more than a demand for blanket death sentences. They are also a democratic outcry, demanding that justice finally be done — and an attempt by a nation to wrest control from failed leaders who have consistently put personal profit over national interest. The protests represent the spirit of 1971 — and a bigger war that is yet to be won.