NEW DELHI — The authorities in Bangladesh were braced for violence on Wednesday after the execution of a senior opposition leader convicted of atrocities dating from Bangladesh’s 1971 war for independence from Pakistan.

The opposition figure, Motiur Rahman Nizami, who was hanged early Wednesday morning, led Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamic party. A prison official said Mr. Nizami would be buried in his home village in northwestern Bangladesh.

In October 2014, Mr. Nizami was convicted of leading a paramilitary group that sided with the army of West Pakistan against pro-independence forces.

Bangladesh’s Supreme Court upheld the verdict last week, and Mr. Nizami did not submit a plea for mercy to the president, said the country’s home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan.