The Bangladesh genocide began on 25 March 1971 with the launch of
Operation Searchlight
Operation Searchlight was the codename for a planned military operation carried out by the Pakistan Army in an effort to curb the Bengali nationalist movement in former East Pakistan in March 1971. Pakistan retrospectively justified the opera ...
, as the government of
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
, dominated by
West Pakistan
West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial exclaves created during the One Unit Scheme in 1955 in Pakistan. It was ...
, began a military crackdown on
East Pakistan
East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Myanmar, wi ...
(now
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
) to suppress
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
calls for self-determination. During the nine-month-long
Bangladesh Liberation War, members of the
Pakistan Armed Forces
The Pakistan Armed Forces (; ) are the military forces of Pakistan. It is the world's sixth-largest military measured by active military personnel and consist of three formally uniformed services—the Army, Navy, and the Air Force, which are ...
and supporting pro-Pakistani Islamist
militia
A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
s from
Jamaat-e-Islami killed between 300,000 and 3,000,000
people and raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bengali women,
in a systematic campaign of
genocidal rape
Genocidal rape, a form of wartime sexual violence, is the action of a group which has carried out acts of mass rape and gang rapes, against its enemy during wartime as part of a genocidal campaign. During the Armenian Genocide, the second Sin ...
. The
Government of Bangladesh
The Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh ( bn, গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ সরকার — ) is the central executive government of Bangladesh. The government was constituted by the Co ...
states 3,000,000 people were killed during the genocide, making it the
largest
Large means of great size.
Large may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics
* Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers
* Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (o ...
genocide since the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
The actions against women were supported by Pakistan's religious leaders, who declared that Bengali women were ''gonimoter maal'' (Bengali for "public property"). As a result of the conflict, a further eight to ten million people
fled the country to seek refuge in neighbouring
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. It is estimated that up to 30 million civilians were internally displaced
out of 70 million.
During the war, there was also
ethnic violence
Ethnic violence is a form of political violence which is expressly motivated by ethnic hatred and ethnic conflict. Forms of ethnic violence which can be argued to have the characteristics of terrorism may be known as ethnic terrorism or ethnica ...
between Bengalis and
Urdu-speaking Biharis. Biharis faced reprisals from Bengali mobs and militias,
and from 1,000
to 150,000
were killed.
There is an academic consensus that the events which took place during the Bangladesh Liberation War constituted a
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
; however, there are some scholars and authors who disagree that the killing was a genocide.
Background
![21 Feb 1953 Dhaka University female students procession](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/21_Feb_1953_Dhaka_University_female_students_procession.png)
Following the
partition of India, the new state of Pakistan represented a geographical anomaly, with two wings separated by of Indian territory. The wings were not only separated geographically, but also
culturally
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human Society, societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, and habits of the ...
. The authorities of the West viewed the Bengali Muslims in the East as "too 'Bengali'" and their application of Islam as "inferior and impure", believing this made the Bengalis unreliable "co-religionists". To this extent politicians in West Pakistan began a strategy to forcibly assimilate the Bengalis culturally.
The Bengali people were the demographic majority in Pakistan, making up an estimated 75 million in
East Pakistan
East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Myanmar, wi ...
, compared with 55 million in the predominantly
Punjabi-speaking
West Pakistan
West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial exclaves created during the One Unit Scheme in 1955 in Pakistan. It was ...
. The majority in the East were Muslim, with large minorities of Hindus, Buddhists and Christians. The West considered the people of the East to be second-class citizens, and
Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi
Lieutenant General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi (1915 – 1 February 2004) was a Pakistan Army general. During the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, he commanded the Pakistani Eastern Command in East Pakistan (now Bang ...
, who served as head of the Pakistani Forces in East Pakistan in 1971, referred to
Bengalis
Bengalis (singular Bengali bn, বাঙ্গালী/বাঙালি ), also rendered as Bangalee or the Bengali people, are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the Bengal region of ...
as inferior to
Pathans
Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically re ...
and
Punjabis.
In 1948, a few months after the creation of Pakistan,
Governor-General Mohammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mono ...
declared
as the national language of the newly formed state, although only four per cent of Pakistan's population spoke Urdu at that time. He mentioned that the people of
East Bengal
ur,
, common_name = East Bengal
, status = Province of the Dominion of Pakistan
, p1 = Bengal Presidency
, flag_p1 = Flag of British Bengal.svg
, s1 = East ...
could choose what would be its provincial language, and branded those who were against the use of
as the national language of Pakistan as
communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
,
traitors and enemies of the state. The refusal by successive governments to recognise
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
as the second national language culminated in the
Bengali language movement and strengthened support for the newly formed
Awami League, which was founded in the East as an alternative to the ruling
Muslim League Muslim League may refer to:
Political parties Subcontinent
; British India
*All-India Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinah, led the demand for the partition of India resulting in the creation of Pakistan.
**Punjab Muslim League, a branch of the organ ...
. A 1952 protest in
Dhaka
Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city i ...
, the capital of East Pakistan, was forcibly broken up, resulting in the deaths of several protesters. Bengali nationalists viewed those who had died as martyrs for their cause, and the violence led to calls for secession. The
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 caused further grievances, as the military had assigned no extra units to the defence of the East. This was a matter of concern to the Bengalis who saw their nation undefended in case of Indian attack during the conflict of 1965, and that
Ayub Khan, the
President of Pakistan, was willing to lose the
East
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
if it meant gaining
Kashmir.
The slow response to the
Bhola cyclone
The 1970 Bhola cyclone (Also known as the Great Cyclone of 1970) was a devastating tropical cyclone that struck East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) and India's West Bengal on November 11, 1970. It remains the deadliest tropical cyclone ever re ...
which struck on 12 November 1970 is widely seen as a contributing factor in the December 1970
general election. The East Pakistan-based Awami League, headed by
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ( bn, শেখ মুজিবুর রহমান; 17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975), often shortened as Sheikh Mujib or Mujib and widely known as Bangabandhu (meaning ''Friend of Bengal''), was a Bengali politi ...
, won a national majority in the first democratic election since the creation of Pakistan, sweeping East Pakistan. But, the West Pakistani establishment prevented them from forming a government. President
Yahya Khan
General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan , (Urdu: ; 4 February 1917 – 10 August 1980); commonly known as Yahya Khan, was a Pakistani military general who served as the third President of Pakistan and Chief Martial Law Administrator following his p ...
, encouraged by
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar (or Zulfiqar) Ali Bhutto ( ur, , sd, ذوالفقار علي ڀٽو; 5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979), also known as Quaid-e-Awam ("the People's Leader"), was a Pakistani barrister, politician and statesman who served as the fourt ...
, banned the Awami League and declared
martial law
Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory.
Use
Marti ...
. The Pakistani Army demolished
Ramna Kali Mandir
The Ramna Kali Mandir ( bn, রমনা কালী মন্দির) is a temple in Dhaka that was originally built in the time of the Mughal Empire. It was also known as the "Ramna Kalibari". The temple is dedicated to the Hindu Goddess ...
(temple) and killed 85 Hindus. On 22 February 1971, General Yahya Khan is reported to have said "Kill three million of them, and the rest will eat out of our hands."
Some Bengalis supported a united Pakistan and opposed secession from it. According to Indian academic Sarmila Bose, these pro-Pakistan Bengalis constituted a significant minority, and included the Islamic parties. Moreover, many Awami League voters who hoped to achieve provincial autonomy may not have desired secession. Additionally, some Bengali officers and soldiers remained loyal to the Pakistani Army and were taken as prisoners of war by India along with other West Pakistani soldiers.
Thus, according to Sarmila Bose, there were many pro-regime Bengalis who killed and persecuted the pro-liberation fighters.
Sydney Schanberg
Sydney Hillel Schanberg (January 17, 1934 July 9, 2016) was an American journalist who was best known for his coverage of the war in Cambodia. He was the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two George Polk awards, two Overseas Press Club awards, a ...
reported the formation of armed civilian units by the Pakistani Army in June 1971. Only a minority of the recruits were Bengali, while most were Biharis and Urdu speakers. The units with local knowledge played an important role in the implementation of the Pakistani Army's genocide. American writer Gary J. Bass believes that the breakup of Pakistan was not inevitable, identifying 25 March 1971 as the point where the idea of a united Pakistan ended for Bengalis with the start of military operations. According to John H. Gill, since there was widespread polarisation between pro-Pakistan Bengalis and pro-liberation Bengalis during the war, those internal battles are still playing out in the domestic politics of modern-day Bangladesh.
Operation Searchlight
Operation Searchlight
Operation Searchlight was the codename for a planned military operation carried out by the Pakistan Army in an effort to curb the Bengali nationalist movement in former East Pakistan in March 1971. Pakistan retrospectively justified the opera ...
was a planned military operation carried out by the Pakistani Army to curb elements of the separatist Bengali nationalist movement in East Pakistan in March 1971.
The Pakistani state justified commencing Operation Searchlight on the basis of anti-Bihari violence by Bengalis in early March.
Ordered by the government in West Pakistan, this was seen as the sequel to Operation Blitz which had been launched in November 1970. On 1 March 1971 East Pakistan governor Admiral
Syed Mohammed Ahsan was replaced after disagreeing with military action in East Pakistan. His successor
Sahibzada Yaqub Khan resigned after refusing to use soldiers to quell a mutiny and disagreement with military action in East Pakistan.
According to Indian academic Sarmila Bose, the postponement of the National Assembly on 1 March led to widespread lawlessness spread by Bengali protesters during the period of 1–25 March, in which the Pakistani government lost control over much of the province. Bose asserts that during this 25-day period of lawlessness, attacks by Bengalis on non-Bengalis were common as well as attacks by Bengalis on Pakistani military personnel who, according to Bose and Anthony Mascarenhas, showed great restraint until 25 March, when Operation Searchlight began. Bose also described the atrocities committed by the Pakistani Army in her book. According to Anthony Mascarenhas, the actions of the Pakistani Army compared to the violence by Bengalis was "altogether worse and on a grander scale".
On the night of 25 March 1971 the Pakistani Army launched Operation Searchlight. ''Time'' magazine dubbed General
Tikka Khan
General Tikka Khan ( ur, ٹکا خان; 10 February 1915 – 28 March 2002) was a Pakistan Army general who was the first chief of army staff from 3 March 1972 until retiring on 1 March 1976. Along with Yahya Khan, he is considered a chief a ...
the "Butcher of Bengal" for his role in Operation Searchlight.
Targets of the operation included
Jagannath Hall
Jagannath Hall of Dhaka University is a residence hall for minority students, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and others. It is one of the three original residence halls that date from when the University was founded in 1921, and like them is modelled ...
which was a dormitory for non-Muslim students of Dhaka University, Rajarbagh Police Lines, and
Pilkhana, which is the headquarters of
East Pakistan Rifles
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...
. About 34 students were killed in the dormitories of Dhaka University. Neighbourhoods of old Dhaka which had a majority Hindu population were also attacked. Robert Payne, an American journalist, estimated that 7,000 people had been killed and 3,000 arrested in that night. Teachers of Dhaka University were killed in the operation by the Pakistani Army. Sheikh Mujib was arrested by the Pakistani Army on 25 March.
Ramna Kali Mandir
The Ramna Kali Mandir ( bn, রমনা কালী মন্দির) is a temple in Dhaka that was originally built in the time of the Mughal Empire. It was also known as the "Ramna Kalibari". The temple is dedicated to the Hindu Goddess ...
was demolished by the Pakistani Army in March 1971.
The original plan envisioned taking control of the major cities on 26 March 1971, and then eliminating all opposition, political or military, within one month. The prolonged Bengali resistance was not anticipated by Pakistani planners. The main phase of Operation Searchlight ended with the fall of the last major town in Bengali hands in mid May. The countryside still remained almost evenly contested.
The first report of the Bangladesh genocide was published by West Pakistani journalist
Anthony Mascarenhas
Neville Anthony Mascarenhas (10 July 1928 – 3 December 1986) was a Pakistani journalist and author. His works include exposés on the brutality of Pakistan's military during the 1971 independence movement of Bangladesh, ''The Rape of Bangla D ...
in ''The Sunday Times'', London on 13 June 1971 titled "Genocide". He wrote: "I saw Hindus, hunted from village to village and door to door, shot off-hand after a cursory '
short-arm inspection' showed they were uncircumcised. I have heard the screams of men bludgeoned to death in the compound of the Circuit House (civil administrative headquarters) in Comilla. I have seen truckloads of other human targets and those who had the humanity to try to help them hauled off 'for disposal' under the cover of darkness and curfew." This article helped turn world opinion against Pakistan and decisively encouraged the Government of India to intervene.
On 2 August 1971, ''Time'' magazine correspondent sent a dispatch that provided detailed description of the Pakistani army-led destruction in East Pakistan. It wrote that cities have whole sections damaged from shelling and aerial bombardments. The dispatch wrote: "In Dhaka, where soldiers set sections of the Old City ablaze with flamethrowers and then machine-gunned thousands as they tried to escape the cordon of fire, nearly 25 blocks have been bulldozed clear, leaving open areas set incongruously amid jam-packed slums." It quoted a senior US official as saying "It is the most incredible, calculated thing since the days of the Nazis in Poland."
Archer K. Blood, American diplomat wrote in the Blood Telegram addressing
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
administration's disregard for the situation: "with support of the Pak military, non-Bengali Muslims are systematically attacking poor people's quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus."
[U.S. Consulate (Dacca) Cable, Sitrep]
Army Terror Campaign Continues in Dacca; Evidence Military Faces Some Difficulties Elsewhere
, 31 March 1971, Confidential, 3 pp
Estimated killed
On the high end, Bangladeshi authorities claim that as many as 3 million people were killed; the lowest estimate comes from the controversial
Hamoodur Rahman Commission
The Hamoodur Rahman Commission (otherwise known as War Enquiry Commission), was a judicial inquiry commission that assessed Pakistan's political–military involvement in East-Pakistan from 1947 to 1971. The commission was set up on 26 Decem ...
, the official Pakistani government investigation, which claimed the figure was 26,000 civilian casualties.
The figure of 3 million has become embedded in
Bangladeshi culture
The culture of Bangladesh is intertwined with the culture of the ''Bengal region'' of the Indian subcontinent. It has evolved over the centuries and encompasses the cultural diversity of several social groups of Bangladesh. The Bengal Renaiss ...
and
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
.
Sayyid A. Karim, Bangladesh's first
foreign secretary alleges that the source of the figure was ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'', the news-arm of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Independent researchers have estimated the death toll to be around 300,000 to 500,000 people while others estimate the casualty figure to be 3 million.
Midway through the genocide, the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
and the
State Department conservatively estimated that 200,000 people had been killed.
According to
Sarmila Bose
Sarmila Bose is an Indian-American journalist and academic. She has served as a senior research associate at the Centre for International Studies in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. She is th ...
's controversial book ''
Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War'', the number lies somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000.
However, her book was the subject of strong criticism by journalists; writer and visual artist
Naeem Mohaiemen
Naeem Mohaiemen (born 1969) uses film, photography, installation, and essays to research South Asia's postcolonial markers (the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948 and the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971). His projects on the 1970s revolutionary l ...
; Nayanika Mookherjee, an anthropologist at
Durham University; and others.
In 1976 the
undertook a comprehensive population survey in
Matlab, Noakhali where a total of 868 excess wartime deaths were recorded; this led to an estimated overall excess number of deaths in the whole of Bangladesh of nearly 500,000.
Based on this study, the ''
British Medical Journal'' in 2008, conducted a study by Ziad Obermeyer, Christopher J. L. Murray, and Emmanuela Gakidou which estimated that 125,000–505,000 civilians died as a result of the conflict;
the authors note that this is far higher than a previous estimate of 58,000 by Uppsala University and the Peace Research Institute, Oslo. This figure is supported by the statements of Bangladeshi author
Ahmed Sharif
Ahmed Sharif (13 February 1921 – 24 February 1999) was an educationist, philosopher, critic, writer and scholar of medieval Bengali literature. He is recognized as one of the most outspoken atheist and radical thinkers of Bangladesh.
Back ...
in 1996, who added that "they kept the truth hidden for getting political advantages".
American political scientists Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose give a low-end estimate of 300,000 dead, killed by all parties, and they deny that a genocide occurred, while American political scientist
R. J. Rummel estimated that about 1.5 million people were killed in Bangladesh.
Indian journalist Nirmal Sen claims that the total number killed was about 250,000 and among them, about 100,000 were
Bengalis
Bengalis (singular Bengali bn, বাঙ্গালী/বাঙালি ), also rendered as Bangalee or the Bengali people, are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the Bengal region of ...
and the rest were
Biharis
The Biharis () is a demonym given to the inhabitants of the Indian state of Bihar. Bihari people can be separated into three main Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic groups, Bhojpuris, Maithils and Magadhis. They are also further divided into a v ...
.
A 2018 paper by Christian Gerlach concluded that overall deaths due to the war in East Pakistan slightly exceeded half a million and could not have exceeded 1 million,
adding that the majority of death were rural dwellers who died of "hunger, want, and exhaustion" with many deaths occurring in the year following the conflict.
Out of 200,000 member of the Awami League the paper states 17,000 were killed with the leaders of the league experiencing a death ratio of 15 to 20 out of 167.
The paper also denies based on statistical evidence that there was a coordinated attempt to exterminate the Bengali intelligentsia stating: "if one accepts the data published by the Bangladesh propaganda ministry, 4.2 per cent of all university professors were killed, along with 1.4 per cent of all college teachers, 0.6 per cent of all secondary and primary school teachers, and 0.6 per cent of all teaching personnel. On the basis of the aforementioned Ministry of Education data, 1.2 per cent of all teaching personnel were killed. This is hardly proof of an extermination campaign."
Many of those killed were the victims of radical religious paramilitary militias formed by the West Pakistani Army, including the
Razakars,
Al-Shams and
Al-Badr
Al Badr is a village in Mecca Province, in western Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making ...
forces.
[Many of the eyewitness accounts of relations that were picked up by "Al Badr" forces describe them as Bengali men. The only survivor of the Rayerbazar killings describes the captors and killers of Bengali professionals as fellow Bengalis. See 37 Dilawar Hossain, account reproduced in 'Ekattorer Ghatok-dalalera ke Kothay' (Muktijuddha Chetona Bikash Kendro, Dhaka, 1989)] There are many mass graves in Bangladesh, and more are continually being discovered (such as one in an old well near a mosque in Dhaka, located in the
Mirpur region of the city, which was discovered in August 1999). The first night of war on Bengalis, which is documented in telegrams from the American Consulate in Dhaka to the United States State Department, saw indiscriminate killings of students of Dhaka University and other civilians.
On 16 December 2002, the
George Washington University
The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...
's
National Security Archive published a collection of declassified documents, consisting mostly of communications between US embassy officials and
USIS centres in Dhaka and India, and officials in Washington, D.C.
These documents show that US officials working in diplomatic institutions within Bangladesh used the terms ''selective genocide''
and ''genocide'' (see
Blood telegram) to describe events they had knowledge of at the time. The complete chronology of events as reported to the
Nixon administration
Richard Nixon's tenure as the 37th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1969, and ended when he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of almost certain impeachment because of the Watergate Scanda ...
can be found on the Department of State website.
Islamist militias
The
Jamaat-e-Islami party as well as some other pro-Pakistani Islamists opposed the Bangladeshi independence struggle and collaborated with the Pakistani state and armed forces out of Islamic solidarity. According to political scientist
Peter Tomsen
Peter Tomsen (born November 19, 1940) is an American retired diplomat and educator, serving as U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992, United States Ambassador to Armenia between 1995 and 1998, and was Deputy Ambassador at the Un ...
, Pakistan's
secret service
A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...
, in conjunction with the political party
Jamaat-e-Islami, formed militias such as Al-Badr ("the moon") and the Al-Shams ("the sun") to conduct operations against the nationalist movement. These militias targeted noncombatants and committed rapes as well as other crimes. Local
collaborators known as
Razakars also took part in the atrocities. The term has since become a
pejorative
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
akin to the western term "
Judas
Judas Iscariot (; grc-x-biblical, Ἰούδας Ἰσκαριώτης; syc, ܝܗܘܕܐ ܣܟܪܝܘܛܐ; died AD) was a disciple and one of the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. According to all four canonical gospels, Judas betr ...
".
Members of the
Muslim League Muslim League may refer to:
Political parties Subcontinent
; British India
*All-India Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinah, led the demand for the partition of India resulting in the creation of Pakistan.
**Punjab Muslim League, a branch of the organ ...
,
Nizam-e-Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema Pakistan, who had lost the election, collaborated with the military and acted as an intelligence organisation for them. Jamaat-e-Islami members and some of its leaders collaborated with the Pakistani forces in rapes and targeted killings. The atrocities by Al-Badr and the Al-Shams garnered worldwide attention from news agencies; accounts of massacres and rapes were widely reported.
Killing of intellectuals
During the war, the Pakistani Army and its local collaborators, mainly
Jamaat e Islami carried out a systematic execution of the leading Bengali intellectuals. A number of professors from Dhaka University were killed during the first few days of the war.
Ajoy Roy
Ajoy Roy (1 March 1935 – 9 December 2019) was a Bangladeshi professor of physics at the University of Dhaka, but was best known for his prominent role in Bangladesh's human rights activism and freethinking. He was one of the eminent educationi ...
"Homage to my martyr colleagues"
, 2002 However, the most extreme cases of
targeted killing
Targeted killing is a form of murder or assassination carried out by governments outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield.
Since the late 20th century, the legal status of targeted killing has become a subject of contention within and bet ...
of intellectuals took place during the last few days of the war. Professors, journalists, doctors, artists, engineers and writers were rounded up by the Pakistani Army and the Razakar militia in Dhaka, blindfolded, taken to torture cells in Mirpur,
Mohammadpur,
Nakhalpara, Rajarbagh and other locations in different sections of the city to be executed en masse, most notably at Rayerbazar and Mirpur.
Allegedly, the Pakistani Army and its paramilitary arm, the Al-Badr and Al-Shams forces created a list of doctors, teachers, poets, and scholars.
[Dr. M.A. Hasan, ''Juddhaporadh, Gonohatya o bicharer anneshan'', War Crimes Fact Finding Committee and Genocide archive & Human Studies Centre, Dhaka, 2001]
During the nine-month duration of the war the Pakistani Army, with the assistance of local collaborators, systematically executed an estimated 991 teachers, 13 journalists, 49 physicians, 42 lawyers, and 16 writers, artists and engineers.
[ Even after the official ending of the war on 16 December there were reports of killings being committed by either the armed Pakistani soldiers or by their collaborators. In one such incident, notable filmmaker Jahir Raihan was killed on 30 January 1972 in Mirpur, allegedly by armed Beharis. In memory of the people who were killed, 14 December is observed in Bangladesh as Shaheed Buddhijibi Dibosh ("Day of the Martyred Intellectuals").][
Notable intellectuals who were killed from the time period of 25 March to 16 December 1971 in different parts of the country include Dhaka University professors Dr. ]Govinda Chandra Dev
Govinda Chandra Dev (1 February 1907 – 25 March 1971), known as Dr. G. C. Dev, was a professor of philosophy at the University of Dhaka. He was assassinated at the onset of Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 by the Pakistan Army.
Early life and ...
(philosophy), Dr. Munier Chowdhury
Munier Choudhury (27 November 192514 December 1971) was a Bangladeshi educationist, playwright, literary critic and political dissident. He was a victim of the mass killing of Bangladeshi intellectuals in 1971. He was awarded Independence Day A ...
(Bengali literature), Dr. Mufazzal Haider Chaudhury (Bengali Literature), Dr. Anwar Pasha (Bengali Literature), Dr M Abul Khair (history), Dr. Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta (English literature), Humayun Kabir (English literature), Rashidul Hasan
SMA Rashidul Hasan (193214 December 1971) was a Bengali educationist. He was born in the district of Birbhum, West Bengal. In 1949, he migrated to East Pakistan. He was awarded Independence Day Award in 2018 posthumously by the Government of Bangla ...
(English literature), Ghyasuddin Ahmed, Sirajul Haque Khan, Faizul Mahi ANM Faizul Mahi, ( bn, ফয়জুল মহি;1939 – 14 December 1971) born in the district of Feni, was a Bengali educationist.
Education and career
Mahi joined the Institute of Education and Research in 1968 after obtaining Ed.D. (doctor ...
, Dr Santosh Chandra Bhattacharyya and Saidul Hassan (physics), Rajshahi University professors Dr. Hobibur Rahman (mathematics), Prof Sukhranjan Somaddar (Sanskrit), Prof Mir Abdul Quaiyum (psychology) as well as Dr. Mohammed Fazle Rabbee
Mohammed Fazle Rabbee (occasionally spelled Rabbi, bn, মোহাম্মদ ফজলে রাব্বী; 21 September 1932 – 15 December 1971) was a renowned cardiologist and a published medical researcher. He was the joint professor ...
(cardiologist), Dr. AFM Alim Chowdhury (ophthalmologist), Shahidullah Kaiser (journalist), Nizamuddin Ahmed (journalist), Selina Parvin
Selina Parvin (31 March 193114 December 1971) was a Bangladeshi journalist and poet. She is one of the intellectual martyrs killed by Al-Badr on 14 December, immediately before the victory after the 9-month-long war of independence of Banglades ...
(journalist), Altaf Mahmud (lyricist and musician), Dhirendranath Datta (politician), Jahir Raihan (novelist, journalist, film director) and Ranadaprasad Saha
Ranadaprasad Shaha (also RP Shaha; 15 November 1896 – May 1971) was a Bangladeshi businessman and philanthropist. He founded educational institutes like Bharateswari Homes, Kumudini College and Debendra College. During the Bangladesh Libera ...
(philanthropist).
Violence
Against women
The generally accepted figure for the mass rapes during the nine-month long conflict is between 200,000 and 400,000. During the war, a so-called fatwa originating in West Pakistan
West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial exclaves created during the One Unit Scheme in 1955 in Pakistan. It was ...
declared that the Bengali freedom fighters were Hindus and that their women could be taken as the "booty of war". Imams and Muslim religious leaders of Pakistan publicly declared that the Bengali women were 'gonimoter maal' (war booty) and thus they openly supported the rape of Bengali women by the Pakistani Army. Numerous women were tortured, raped and killed during the war. Hindu women used to be killed after being raped and Bengali Muslim women left alive to give birth to "pure" Muslims. A 17 year old Hindu bride who was gang raped by Pakistani soldiers, was also documented.
Two went into the room that had been built for the bridal couple. The others stayed behind with the family, one of them covering them with his gun. They heard a barked order, and the bridegroom's voice protesting. Then there was silence until the bride screamed ... In a few minutes one of the soldiers came out, his uniform in disarray. He grinned to his companions. Another soldier took his place in the extra room. And so on, until all six had raped the belle of the village. Then all six left, hurriedly. The father found his daughter lying on the string cot unconscious and bleeding. Her husband was crouched on the floor, kneeling over his vomit.
Bangladeshi sources cite a figure of 200,000 women raped, giving birth to thousands of war-babies. The soldiers of the Pakistan Army and razakars also kept Bengali women as sex-slaves inside the Pakistani Army's camps, and many became pregnant. The perpetrators also included Mukti Bahini and the Indian Army, which targeted noncombatants and committed rapes, as well as other crimes. Among other sources, Susan Brownmiller
Susan Brownmiller (born Susan Warhaftig; February 15, 1935) is an American journalist, author and feminist activist best known for her 1975 book '' Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape'', which was selected by The New York Public Library as o ...
refers to an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 women raped. Pakistani sources claim the number is much lower, though they have not denied that rape incidents occurred. Brownmiller writes:
In a ''New York Times'' report named 'Horrors of East Pakistan Turning Hope into Despair', Malcolm W. Browne wrote:
The licentious attitude of the soldiers, although generally supported by their superiors, alarmed the regional high command of the Pakistani Army. On 15 April 1971, in a secret memorandum to the divisional commanders, Niazi complained,
Anthony Mascarenhas published a newspaper article titled 'Genocide in June 1971' in which he also wrote about violence perpetrated by Bengalis against Biharis.First it was the massacre of the non-Bengalis in a savage outburst of Bengali hatred. Now it was massacre deliberately carried out by the West Pakistan army ... The West Pakistani soldiers are not the only ones who have been killing in East Bengal, of course. On the night of 25 March... the Bengali troops and paramilitary units stationed in East Pakistan mutinied and attacked non-Bengalis with atrocious savagery. Thousands of families of unfortunate Muslims, many of them refugees from Bihar who chose Pakistan at the time of the partition riots in 1947, were mercilessly wiped out. Women were raped, or had their breasts torn out with specially-fashioned knives. Children did not escape the horror; the lucky ones were killed with their parents...
Pakistani Major General Khadim Hussain Raja wrote in his book that Niazi, in presence of Bengali officers would say ‘''Main iss haramzadi qom ki nasal badal doonga'' (I will change the race of the Bengalis)’. A witness statement to the commission read "The troops used to say that when the Commander (Lt Gen Niazi) was himself a raper (sic), how could they be stopped?".
Another work that has included direct experiences from the women raped is ''Ami Birangona Bolchhi'' ("I, the heroine, speak") by Nilima Ibrahim
Neelima Ibrahim (11 October 1921 – 18 June 2002) was a Bangladeshi educationist, littérateur and social worker. She is well known for her scholarship on Bengali literature but even more so for her depiction of raped and tortured women in the ...
. The work includes in its name from the word ''Birangona'' (Heroine), given by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after the war, to the raped and tortured women during the war. This was a conscious effort to alleviate any social stigma the women might face in the society.
There are eyewitness reports of the "rape camps" established by the Pakistani Army. The US based Women Under Siege Project
The Women Under Siege Project is an independent initiative of the Women's Media Center (WMC). The project documents online and through social media how rape and gender-based violence are used as tools in warfare and genocide. The project uses jour ...
of the Women's Media Center
Women's Media Center (WMC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit women's organization in the United States founded in 2005 by writers and activists Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem. have reported the girls as young as 8 and women as old as 75 were detained in Pakistan military barracks, and where they were victims of mass rape which sometimes culminated in mass murder. The report was based on interview with survivors. Australian Doctor Geoffrey Davis was brought to Bangladesh by the United Nation and International Planned Parenthood Federation
The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is a global non-governmental organisation with the broad aims of promoting sexual and reproductive health, and advocating the right of individuals to make their own choices in family ...
to carry out late term abortions on rape victims. He was of the opinion that the 200,000 to 400,000 rape victims were an underestimation. On the actions of Pakistan army he said "They'd keep the infantry back and put artillery ahead and they would shell the hospitals and schools. And that caused absolute chaos in the town. And then the infantry would go in and begin to segregate the women. Apart from little children, all those were (sic) sexually matured would be segregated..And then the women would be put in the compound under guard and made available to the troops ... Some of the stories they told were appalling. Being raped again and again and again. A lot of them died in those ape
Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...
camps. There was an air of disbelief about the whole thing. Nobody could credit that it really happened! But the evidence clearly showed that it did happen."
In October 2005, Sarmila Bose
Sarmila Bose is an Indian-American journalist and academic. She has served as a senior research associate at the Centre for International Studies in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. She is th ...
published a paper suggesting that the casualties and rape allegations in the war have been greatly exaggerated for political purposes. Whilst she received praise from many quarters, a number of researchers have shown inaccuracies in Bose's work, including flawed methodology of statistical analysis, misrepresentation of referenced sources, and disproportionate weight to Pakistani Army testimonies.
Historian Christian Gerlach Hans Christian Gerlach is professor of Modern History at the University of Bern. Gerlach is also Associate Editor of the ''Journal of Genocide Research'' and author of multiple books dealing with the Hunger Plan, the Holocaust, and genocide.
Wri ...
states that "a systematic collection of statistical data was aborted, possibly because the tentative data did not substantiate the claim that three million had died and at least 200,000 women had been raped."
Against Hindus
An article in ''Time'' magazine, dated 2 August 1971, stated "The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Muslim military hatred." Pakistan army eastern command headquarter officials in Dhaka made clear the government's policy on East Bengal. After the elimination or exile of Hindus, their property was going to be shared among middle class Muslims.[Beachler, Donald (2007) 'The politics of genocide scholarship:the case of Bangladesh', Patterns of Prejudice, 41:5, 467 - 492] According to Colonel Naim, Hindus "undermined the Muslim masses." He said Bengali culture to a great extent was Hindu culture, and "We have to sort them out to restore the land to the people." In April 1971 at Comilla, Major Rathore said to Anthony Mascarenhas, regarding Hindus: "Now under the cover of fighting we have an excellent opportunity of finishing them off. ..Of course .. we are only killing the Hindu men. We are soldiers, not cowards like the rebels."
Hindus were alleged to have corrupted the Awami League. Pakistani soldiers repeatedly boasted to US Consul Archer Blood that they came "to kill Hindus". A witness heard an officer shouting to soldiers: "Why you have killed Muslims ic We ordered you to kill only Hindus." US government cables noted that the minorities of Bangladesh, especially the Hindus
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
, were specific targets of the Pakistani Army. US consulates reported methodical slaughter of Hindu men in cities starting in the first 24 hours of the crackdown. Army units entered villages asking where Hindus live; it was "common pattern" to kill Hindu males. Hindus were identified because they were not circumcised. There were barely any areas where no Hindu was killed. Sometimes the military also massacred Hindu women. There was widespread killing of Hindu males, and rapes of women. Documented incidents in which Hindus were massacred in large numbers include the Jathibhanga massacre
The Jathibhanga massacre ( bn, জাঠিভাঙ্গা গণহত্যা) was a massacre of the Bengali & Rajbanshi population in Jathibhanga, Thakurgaon District, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on 23 April 1971. It was perpetrated by ...
, the Chuknagar massacre
Chuknagar massacre ( bn, চুকনগর গণহত্যা) was a massacre of Bengali Hindus committed by the Pakistan Army and local Razakars during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. The massacre took place on 20 May 1971 at Dumuria ...
, and the Shankharipara massacre
Shankharibazar massacre ( bn, শাঁখারীবাজার গণহত্যা) was a massacre of the Hindus of the Shankharibazar area of Old Dhaka on 26 March 1971 by the Pakistani occupation army. The survivors fled to the villages ...
.
Senator Edward Kennedy
Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
wrote in a report that was part of United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the U.S. Senate charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. It is generally responsible for overseeing and funding foreign aid ...
testimony, dated 1 November 1971, "Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked "H". All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad
Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital ...
". More than 60% of the Bengali refugees who fled to India were Hindus.[U.S. State Department, ''Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976'', Volume XI, "South Asia Crisis, 1971", page 165][Kennedy, Senator Edward, "Crisis in South Asia – A report to the Subcommittee investigating the Problem of Refugees and Their Settlement, Submitted to U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee", 1 November 1971, U.S. Govt. Press, page 66. Sen. Kennedy wrote, "Field reports to the U.S. Government, countless eye-witness journalistic accounts, reports of International agencies such as World Bank and additional information available to the subcommittee document the reign of terror which grips East Bengal (East Pakistan). Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked 'H'. All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad."] It has been alleged that this widespread violence against Hindus was motivated by a policy to purge East Pakistan of what was seen as Hindu and Indian influences. Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
temples and Buddhist monks were also attacked throughout the course of the year. Lt. Colonel Aziz Ahmed Khan reported that in May 1971 there was a written order to kill Hindus, and that General Niazi would ask troops how many Hindus they had killed.
According to R. J. Rummel, professor of political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
at the University of Hawaii
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
,
The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Sydney Schanberg
Sydney Hillel Schanberg (January 17, 1934 July 9, 2016) was an American journalist who was best known for his coverage of the war in Cambodia. He was the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two George Polk awards, two Overseas Press Club awards, a ...
covered the start of the war and wrote extensively on the suffering of the East Bengalis, including the Hindus both during and after the conflict. In a syndicated column "The Pakistani Slaughter That Nixon Ignored", he wrote about his return to liberated Bangladesh in 1972. "Other reminders were the yellow "H"s the Pakistanis had painted on the homes of Hindus, particular targets of the Muslim army" (by "Muslim army", meaning the Pakistan Army, which had targeted Bengali Muslims as well). Missionaries in Bangladesh reported to Schanberg that massacres occurred on a nearly daily basis. One reported the slaughter of over a thousand Hindus in the southern district of Barisal in a single day. According to another, a Peace Committee in northeastern Sylhet district called residents together. Troops arrived and from the gathered crowd selected 300 Hindus and shot them dead.
Persecution of Biharis
In 1947, at the time of partition and the establishment of the state of Pakistan, Bihari Muslims, many of whom were fleeing the violence that took place during partition, migrated from India to the newly independent East Pakistan. These Urdu-speaking people were averse to the Bengali language movement and the subsequent nationalist movements because they maintained allegiance toward West Pakistani rulers, causing anti-Bihari sentiments among local nationalist Bengalis. After the convening of the National Assembly was postponed by Yahya Khan on 1 March 1971, the dissidents in East Pakistan began targeting the ethnic Bihari community which had supported West Pakistan.
In early March 1971, 300 Biharis were slaughtered in rioting by Bengali mobs in Chittagong alone. The Government of Pakistan used the 'Bihari massacre' to justify its deployment of the military in East Pakistan on 25 March, when it initiated its infamous Operation Searchlight. When the war broke out in 1971, the Biharis sided with the Pakistani Army. Some of them joined Razakar and Al-Shams militia groups and participated in the persecution and genocide of their Bengali countrymen, in retaliation for atrocities committed against them by Bengalis, including the widespread looting of Bengali properties and abetting other criminal activities. When the war finished Biharis faced severe retaliation, resulting in a counter-genocide and the displacement of over a million non-Bengalis.
According to the Minorities at Risk
Minorities At Risk (MAR) is a university-based research project that monitors and analyzes the status and conflicts of 283 politically-active communal groups in many countries throughout the world from 1945 to 2006. Those minorities included have ...
project, the number of Biharis killed by Bengalis was reportedly about 1,000. Rudolph Rummel
Rudolph Joseph Rummel (October 21, 1932 – March 2, 2014) was an American political scientist and professor at the Indiana University, Yale University, and University of Hawaiʻi. He spent his career studying data on collective violence and war w ...
gives an estimate of 150,000 killed. International estimates vary, while some have put the deaths as several thousands; Biharis faced reprisals from the Mukti Bahini and militias, and from 500,000 to 550,000 were killed.
Bihari representatives claim a figure of 600,000 Biharis killed.
After the war the Government of Bangladesh confiscated the properties of the Bihari Population. There are many reports of massacres of Biharis and alleged collaborators that took place in the period following the surrender of the Pakistani Army on 16 December 1971. In an incident on 18 December 1971, captured on camera and attended by members of the foreign press, Abdul Kader Siddiqui, together with Kaderia Bahini guerrillas under his command and named after him, bayoneted and shot to death a group of prisoners of war who were accused of belonging to the Razakar paramilitary forces.
International reactions
''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' reported a high US official as saying of the slaughter of the East Pakistanis by their West Pakistani enemies, "It is the most incredible, calculated thing since the days of the Nazis in Poland." Genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
is the term that is used to describe the event in almost every major publication and newspaper in Bangladesh; the term is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group"
A 1972 report by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) noted that both sides in the conflict accused each other of perpetrating genocide. The report observed that it may be difficult to substantiate claims that the "whole of the military action and repressive measures taken by the Pakistani Army and their auxiliary forces constituted genocide' that was intended to destroy the Bengali people in whole or in part, and that 'preventing a nation from attaining political autonomy does not constitute genocide: the intention must be to destroy in whole or in part the people as such." The difficulty of proving intent was considered to be further complicated by the fact that three specific sections of the Bengali people were targeted in killings committed by the Pakistani Army and their collaborators: members of the Awami League, students, and East Pakistani citizens of the Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
religion. The report observed, however, that there is a strong ''prima facie'' case that particular acts of genocide were committed, especially towards the end of the war, when Bengalis were targeted indiscriminately. Similarly, it was felt that there is a strong ''prima facie'' case that crimes of genocide were committed against the Hindu population of East Pakistan.[International Commission of Jurists, "The Events in Pakistan: A Legal Study By The Secretariat Of The International Commission Of Jurists" 9 (1972), p. 56–57., cited in S. Linton, "Completing the Circle: Accountability for the Crimes of the 1971 Bangladesh War of Liberation," Criminal Law Forum (2010) 21:191–311, p. 243.]
As regards the massacres of non-Bengalis by Bengalis during and after the Liberation War, the ICJ report argued that it is improbable that "spontaneous and frenzied mob violence against a particular section of the community from whom the mob senses danger and hostility is to be regarded as possessing the necessary element of conscious intent to constitute the crime of genocide," but that, if the ''dolus specialis
References
Additional sources
*
*
{{Latin phrases
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ca:Locució llatina#D
da:Latinske ord og vendinger#D
fr:Liste de locutions latines#D
id:Daftar frasa Latin#D
it:Locuzioni latine#D
nl:Lijst van Latijnse spreekwoorden en uitdru ...
'' were to be proved in particular cases, these would have constituted acts of genocide against non-Bengalis.[
After the minimum 20 countries became parties to the ]Genocide Convention
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was ...
, it came into force as international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
on 12 January 1951. At that time however, only two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...
were parties to the treaty, and it was not until after the last of the five permanent members ratified the treaty in 1988, and the Cold War came to an end, that the international law on the crime of genocide began to be enforced. As such, the allegation that genocide took place during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 was never investigated by an international tribunal set up under the auspices of the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
.
Rudolph Rummel
Rudolph Joseph Rummel (October 21, 1932 – March 2, 2014) was an American political scientist and professor at the Indiana University, Yale University, and University of Hawaiʻi. He spent his career studying data on collective violence and war w ...
wrote, "In 1971, the self-appointed president of Pakistan and commander-in-chief of the army General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and his top generals prepared a careful and systematic military, economic, and political operation against East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). They planned to murder that country's Bengali intellectual, cultural, and political elite. They planned to indiscriminately murder hundreds of thousands of its Hindus and drive the rest into India. And they planned to destroy its economic base to insure that it would be subordinate to West Pakistan for at least a generation to come. This despicable and cutthroat plan was outright genocide."
The genocide is also mentioned in some publications outside the subcontinent; for example, ''The Guinness Book of Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
'' lists the atrocities as one of the largest five genocides in the twentieth century.
US complicity
President Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
viewed Pakistan as a Cold War ally and refused to condemn its actions. From the White House tapes: "The President seems to be making sure that the distrusted State Department would not, on its own, condemn Yahya for killing Bengal
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
is." Nixon and China tried to suppress reports of genocide emanating from East Pakistan. Nixon also relied on Americans not paying close attention to events in Asia: "Biafra
Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a partially recognised secessionist state in West Africa that declared independence from Nigeria and existed from 1967 until 1970. Its territory consisted of the predominantly Igbo-populated form ...
stirred up a few Catholics. But you know, I think Biafra stirred people up more than Pakistan, because Pakistan they're just a bunch of brown goddamn Moslems."
The US government secretly encouraged the shipment of weapons from Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
, and Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
to Pakistan, and reimbursed those countries for them[Black, Conrad, "Richard Nixon: A Life in Full" ( New York: PublicAffairs, 2007), p. 756.] despite Congressional objections.
A collection of declassified US government documents, mostly consisting of communications between US officials in Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
and in embassies and USIS centers in Dhaka
Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city i ...
and in India, show that US officials knew about these mass killings at the time and, in fact, used the terms "genocide" and "selective genocide," for example, in the " Blood Telegram." They also show that President Nixon, advised by Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
, decided to downplay this secret internal advice, because he wanted to protect the interests of Pakistan as he was apprehensive of India's friendship with the USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, and he was seeking a closer relationship with China, which supported Pakistan.
In his book '' The Trial of Henry Kissinger'', Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...
elaborates on what he saw as the efforts of Kissinger to subvert the aspirations of independence on the part of the Bengalis. Hitchens not only claims that the term genocide is appropriate to describe the results of the struggle, but also points to the efforts of Henry Kissinger in undermining others who condemned the then-ongoing atrocities as being a genocide. Hitchens concluded, "Kissinger was responsible for the killing of thousands of people, including Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ( bn, শেখ মুজিবুর রহমান; 17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975), often shortened as Sheikh Mujib or Mujib and widely known as Bangabandhu (meaning ''Friend of Bengal''), was a Bengali politi ...
".
Some American politicians did speak out. Senator Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
charged Pakistan with committing genocide, and called for a complete cut-off of American military and economic aid to Pakistan.[Alt URL]
War crimes trial attempts
As early as 22 December 1971, the Indian Army
The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...
was conducting investigations of senior Pakistani Army officers connected to the massacre of intellectuals in Dhaka, with the aim of collecting sufficient evidence to have them tried as war criminals. They produced a list of officers who were in positions of command at the time, or were connected to the Inter-Services Screening Committee.
1972–1975
On 24 December 1971, Home minister of Bangladesh A. H. M. Qamaruzzaman
Abul Hasnat Muhammad Qamaruzzaman (1926 – 3 November 1975) was a Bangladeshi politician, government minister and a leading member of the Awami League. A member of the Mujibnagar Government, Kamaruzzaman was murdered along with Syed Nazrul Islam ...
said, "war criminals will not survive from the hands of law. Pakistani military personnel who were involved with killing and raping have to face tribunal." In a joint statement after a meeting between Sheikh Mujib and Indira Gandhi, the Indian government assured that it would give all necessary assistance for bringing war criminals into justice. In February 1972, the government of Bangladesh announced plans to put 100 senior Pakistani officers and officials on trial for crimes of genocide. The list included General A. K. Niazi and four other generals.
After the war, the Indian Army held 92,000 Pakistani prisoners of war, 195 of whom were suspected of committing war crimes. All 195 were released in April 1974 following the tripartite Delhi Agreement between Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, and repatriated to Pakistan, in return for Pakistan's recognition of Bangladesh. Pakistan expressed interest in performing a trial against those 195 officials. Fearing for the fate of 400,000 Bengalis trapped in Pakistan, Bangladesh agreed to hand them over to Pakistani authorities.[
The Bangladeshi Collaborators (Special Tribunals) Order of 1972 was promulgated to bring to trial those Bangladeshis who collaborated with and aided the Pakistani Armed forces during the Liberation War of 1971. There are conflicting accounts of the number of persons brought to trial under the 1972 Collaborators Order, ranging between 10,000 and 40,000.][S. Linton, Criminal Law Forum (2010), p. 205.] At the time, the trials were considered problematic by local and external observers, because they appear to have been used for carrying out political vendettas. R. MacLennan, a British MP who was an observer at the trials stated that 'In the dock, the defendants are scarcely more pitiable than the succession of confused prosecution witnesses driven (by the 88-year-old defence counsel) to admit that they, too, served the Pakistani government but are now ready to swear blindly that their real loyalty was to the government of Bangladesh in exile.' In May 1973, the Pakistani government detained Bengali civil servants stranded in Pakistan, as well as their family members, in response to Bangladesh's attempt to try POWs for genocide. Pakistan unsuccessfully pleaded five times to the International Court of Justice to contest Bangladesh's application of the term "genocide".
The government of Bangladesh issued a general amnesty on 30 November 1973, applying it to all persons except those who were punished or accused of rape, murder, attempted murder or arson. The Collaborators Order of 1972 was revoked in 1975.
The International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973 was promulgated to prosecute any persons, irrespective of nationality, who were accused of committing crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, "violations of any humanitarian rules applicable in armed conflicts laid out in the Geneva Conventions of 1949" and "any other crimes under international law". Detainees held under the 1972 Collaborators Order who were not released by the general amnesty of 1973 were going to be tried under this Act. However, no trials were held, and all activities related to the Act ceased after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975.
There are no known instances of criminal investigations or trials outside Bangladesh of alleged perpetrators of war crimes during the 1971 war. Initial steps were taken by the Metropolitan Police to investigate individuals resident in the United Kingdom who were alleged to have committed war crimes according to a Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
documentary film aired in 1995. To date, no charges have been brought against these individuals.
1991–2006
On 29 December 1991 Ghulam Azam
Ghulam Azam ( bn, গোলাম আযম; 7 November 192223 October 2014) was a Bangladeshi Islamist politician. He was the former leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist political party in Bangladesh.
Azam was arrested b ...
, who was accused of being a collaborator with Pakistan in the war of 1971, became the chairman or Ameer of the political party Jamaat-e-Islami of Bangladesh, which caused controversy. This prompted the creation of a 'National Committee for Resisting the Killers and Collaborators of 1971', in the footsteps of a proposal by writer and political activist Jahanara Imam. A mock people's court was formed, which on 26 March 1992 found Ghulam Azam guilty in a widely criticised trial, which sentenced him to death; he ultimately died in prison in 2014.
A case was filed in the Federal Court of Australia on 20 September 2006 for alleged crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during 1971 by the Pakistani Armed Forces and its collaborators. Raymond Solaiman & Associates, acting for the plaintiff Mr. Solaiman, released a press statement which among other things said:[Raymond Faisal Solaiman v People's Republic of Bangladesh & Ors](_blank)
In The Federal Magistrates Court of Australia at Sydney.
On 21 May 2007, at the request of the applicant leave was granted to the applicant to discontinue his application filed on 20 September 2006.
2007–present
On 30 July 2009, the Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs of Bangladesh stated that no Pakistanis would be tried under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973.[S. Linton, Criminal Law Forum (2010), p. 228.] This decision has drawn criticism from international jurists, because it effectively gives immunity to the commanders of the Pakistani Army who are generally considered to be ultimately responsible for the majority of the crimes that were committed in 1971.
The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) is a war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh set up in 2009 to investigate and prosecute suspects for the genocide committed in 1971 by the Pakistan Army and their local collaborators, Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams during the Bangladesh Liberation War. During the 2008 general election, the Awami League (AL) pledged to try war criminals.
The government set up the tribunal after the Awami League won the general election in December 2008 with more than two-thirds majority in parliament. The War Crimes Fact Finding Committee, tasked to investigate and find evidence, completed its report in 2008, identifying 1600 suspects. Prior to the formation of the ICT, the United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
offered assistance in 2009 on the tribunal's formation. In 2009 the parliament amended the 1973 act that authorised such a tribunal to update it.
Throughout the years, tens of thousands of mostly young demonstrators, including women, have called for the death penalty for those convicted of war crimes. Non-violent protests supporting this position have occurred in other cities as the country closely follows the trials. The first indictments were issued in 2010.
By 2012, nine leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist party in the nation, and two of the Bangladesh National Party
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( bn, বাংলাদেশ জাতীয়তাবাদী দল, Bangladesh Jātīyotābādī Dol; BNP) is a centre-right to right-wing nationalist, political party in Bangladesh and one of the majo ...
, had been indicted as suspects in war crimes. Three leaders of Jamaat were the first tried; each were convicted of several charges of war crimes. The first person convicted was Abul Kalam Azad
Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin Ahmed bin Khairuddin Al-Hussaini Azad (; 11 November 1888 – 22 February 1958) was an Indian independence activist, Islamic theologian, writer and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress. Following In ...
, who was tried ''in absentia'' as he had left the country; he was sentenced to death in January 2013.
While human rights groups and various political entities initially supported the establishment of the tribunal, they have since criticised it on issues of fairness and transparency, as well as reported harassment of lawyers and witnesses representing the accused. Jamaat-e-Islami supporters and their student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, called a general strike nationwide on 4 December 2012 in protest against the tribunals. The protest leaders demanded that the tribunal be scrapped permanently and their leaders released immediately.
One of the most high profile verdicts was of Abdul Quader Molla
Abdul Quader Molla ( bn, আব্দুল কাদের মোল্লা; 14 August 1948 – 12 December 2013) was a Bangladeshi Islamist leader, writer, and politician of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, who was convicted of war crimes and ...
, assistant secretary general of Jamaat, who was convicted in February 2013 and sentenced to life imprisonment, which culminated in the massive Shahbag protests. The government, although initially reluctant, eventually appealed the verdict in the Supreme Court, which then sentenced Molla to death. Abdul Quader Molla was subsequently executed on Thursday 12 December 2013, amidst controversies on the legitimacy of the war tribunal hearings, drawing wide criticisms from countries such as the US, UK and Turkey, as well as from the UN. A period of unrest ensued. The majority of the population, however, was found to be in favour of the execution.
Delwar Hossain Sayeedi
Allama Delwar Hossain Sayeedi is a Bangladeshi Islamic scholar, former politician and lecturer, who served as a Member of Parliament representing the Pirojpur-1, Barisal, constituency during 1996–2006.
He has been arrested in 2013, after whi ...
was convicted of war crimes due to his involvement in mass killings, rape, arson, looting and forced conversion of Hindus
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
to Islam. He was sentenced to death by hanging; his sentence, however, was later commuted to life imprisonment.
Motiur Rahman Nizami
Motiur Rahman Nizami ( bn, মতিউর রহমান নিজামী, links=no; 31 March 1943 – 11 May 2016) was a politician, former Minister of Bangladesh, Islamic scholar, writer, and the former leader of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-I ...
was hanged on 11 May 2015 for 16 charges of genocide, rape and torture.
Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury
Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury (13 March 1949 – 22 November 2015) was a Bangladeshi politician, minister and six-term member of Jatiya Sangsad and member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Standing Committee, who served as the adviser o ...
and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, both of whom had been convicted of genocide and rape, were hanged in Dhaka Central Jail shortly after midnight on 22 November 2015.
On 3 December 2016, business tycoon Mir Quasem Ali, convicted of crimes against humanity for torturing and killing suspected Bangladeshi liberationists, was hanged at Kashimpur Prison.
In 2016, a draft of the Digital Security Act was finalized and placed for cabinet approval. The law proposed to declare any propaganda against the War of Liberation as cognizable and non-bailable.
Views in Pakistan
The Hamoodur Rahman Commission
The Hamoodur Rahman Commission (otherwise known as War Enquiry Commission), was a judicial inquiry commission that assessed Pakistan's political–military involvement in East-Pakistan from 1947 to 1971. The commission was set up on 26 Decem ...
set up by the Pakistani government following the war noted various atrocities committed by the Pakistani military, including: Widespread arson and killings in the countryside; killing of intellectuals and professionals; killing of Bengali military officers and soldiers on the pretence of mutiny; killing Bengali civilian officials, businessmen and industrialists; raping numerous Bengali women as a deliberate act of revenge, retaliation and torture; deliberate killing of members of the Bengali Hindu minority; and the creation of mass grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...
s. The Hamoodur Rahman Commission wrote: " discriminate killing and looting could only serve the cause of the enemies of Pakistan. In the harshness, we lost the support of the silent majority of the people of East Pakistan.... The Comilla Cantonment massacre The Comilla Cantonment massacre ( bn, কুমিল্লা সেনানিবাস হত্যাকাণ্ড) was carried out by the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) in March 1971. Lt. Colonel Mansoorul Huq claime ...
(on 27th/28th of March, 1971) under the orders of CO 53 Field Regiment, Lt. Gen. Yakub Malik, in which 17 Bengali Officers and 915 men were just slain by a flick of one Officer's fingers should suffice as an example". The commission's report and findings were suppressed by the Pakistani government for more than 30 years, but were leaked to the Indian and Pakistani media in 2000. However, the commission's lowly death toll of 26,000 was criticised as an attempt to whitewash the war.
Several former West Pakistani Army officers who served in Bangladesh during the 1971 war have admitted to large-scale atrocities by their forces.
The government of Pakistan continues to deny that the 1971 Bangladesh genocide took place under Pakistan's rule of Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
(East Pakistan
East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Myanmar, wi ...
) during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. They typically accuse Pakistani reporters (such as Anthony Mascarenhas
Neville Anthony Mascarenhas (10 July 1928 – 3 December 1986) was a Pakistani journalist and author. His works include exposés on the brutality of Pakistan's military during the 1971 independence movement of Bangladesh, ''The Rape of Bangla D ...
) who reported on the genocide of being "enemy agents". According to Donald W. Beachler, professor of political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
at Ithaca College
Ithaca College is a private college in Ithaca, New York. It was founded by William Egbert in 1892 as a conservatory of music and is set against the backdrop of the city of Ithaca (which is separate from the town), Cayuga Lake, waterfalls, and go ...
:
Similarly, in the wake of the 2013 Shahbag protests against war criminals who were complicit in the genocide, English journalist Philip Hensher
Philip Michael Hensher FRSL (born 20 February 1965) is an English novelist, critic and journalist.
Biography
Son of Raymond J. and Miriam Hensher, his father a bank manager and composer and his mother a university librarian, Hensher was born in ...
wrote:
In the 1974 Delhi Agreement, Bangladesh called on Pakistan to prosecute 195 military officers for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide under relevant provisions of international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
. Pakistan responded that it "deeply regretted any crimes that may have been committed". It failed to bring the perpetrators to account on its own soil, as requested by Bangladesh. The position taken by Pakistan was reiterated by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar (or Zulfiqar) Ali Bhutto ( ur, , sd, ذوالفقار علي ڀٽو; 5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979), also known as Quaid-e-Awam ("the People's Leader"), was a Pakistani barrister, politician and statesman who served as the fourt ...
in 1974, when he simply expressed "regret" for 1971, and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
General Pervez Musharraf ( ur, , Parvez Muśharraf; born 11 August 1943) is a former Pakistani politician and four-star general of the Pakistan Army who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful military takeover of t ...
in 2002, when he expressed regret for the "excesses" committed in 1971.
The International Crimes Tribunal set up by Bangladesh in 2009 to prosecute surviving collaborators of the pro-Pakistani militias in 1971 has been the subject of strong criticism in Pakistani political and military circles. On 30 November 2015, the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (Urdu, Punjabi: ; born 25 December 1949) is a Pakistani businessman and politician who has served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan for three non-consecutive terms. He is the longest-serving prime minister of Pak ...
retreated from earlier positions and said that it denies any role by Pakistan in atrocities in Bangladesh. A statement of the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, after summoning the Acting Bangladeshi High Commissioner, said that "Pakistan also rejected insinuation of complicity in committing crimes or war atrocities. Nothing could be further from the truth". The statement marked a growing trend of genocide denial
Genocide denial is the attempt to deny or minimize the scale and severity of an instance of genocide. Denial is an integral part of genocide and includes secret planning of genocide, propaganda while the genocide is going on, and destruction of ...
in Pakistan, which picked up pace after controversial Indian academic Sarmila Bose
Sarmila Bose is an Indian-American journalist and academic. She has served as a senior research associate at the Centre for International Studies in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. She is th ...
accused the Mukti Bahini
The Mukti Bahini ( bn, মুক্তিবাহিনী, translates as 'freedom fighters', or liberation army), also known as the Bangladesh Forces, was the guerrilla resistance movement consisting of the Bangladeshi military, paramilitary ...
of war crimes. Bose asserts that there is greater denial in Bangladesh of war crimes which were committed by Bengalis against Biharis.
Many in Pakistan's civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.[Hamid Mir
Hamid Mir ( ur, حامد میر; born 23 July 1966) is a Pakistani journalist, columnist and writer. Born in Lahore to a journalistic family, Mir initially worked as a journalist with Pakistani newspapers. He has hosted the political talk show ' ...]
, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani
Husain Haqqani (; born 1 July 1956, alternately spelled Hussain Haqqani) is a Pakistani journalist, academic, political activist, and former ambassador of Pakistan to Sri Lanka and the United States.
Haqqani has written four books on Pakistan, ...
, human rights activist Asma Jahangir
Asma Jilani Jahangir ( ur, , ''ʿĀṣimah Jahāṉgīr''; 27 January 1952 – 11 February 2018) was a Pakistani human rights lawyer and social activist who co-founded and chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Jahangir was known ...
, former Pakistan Air Force chief Asghar Khan
Air Marshal Muhammad Asghar Khan (Retd.) ( ur, 17 January 1921 – 5 January 2018), was a Pakistani politician and an autobiographer, later a dissident serving the cause of pacifism, peace, and human rights.
Born into a military fam ...
, cultural activist Salima Hashmi
Salima Hashmi ( ur, ; born 1942) is a Pakistani painter artist, former college professor, anti-nuclear weapons activist and former caretaker minister in Sethi caretaker ministry. She has served for four years as a professor and the dean of Nat ...
, and defence analyst Muhammad Ali Ehsan. Asma Jahangir has called for an independent United Nations inquiry to investigate the atrocities. Jahangir also described Pakistan's reluctance to acknowledge the genocide a result of the Pakistani Army's dominant influence on foreign policy. She spoke of the need for closure on the 1971 genocide. Pakistani historian Yaqoob Khan Bangash described the actions of the Pakistani Army during the Bangladesh Liberation war as a "rampage".
Documentaries and films
* Stop Genocide
''Stop Genocide'' is a 1971 documentary film by Bangladeshi filmmaker Zahir Raihan. It is a 20-minute film that documents the killings and atrocities carried out by the Pakistan Army on the people of the then East Pakistan. It also depicts the pl ...
(1971) documentary film.
* Major Khaled's war (1971) documentary film
* Nine Months to Freedom: The Story of Bangladesh (1972) documentary film
* Children of War (2014) a film portraying the atrocities in the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide.
* Merciless Mayhem: The Bangladesh Genocide Through Pakistani Eyes (2018) TV movie
A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...
.
See also
* 1971 Dhaka University massacre
In March 1971, the Pakistan Army Eastern Wing Commander Tikka Khan launched Operation Searchlight on the orders of dictator Yahya Khan to crush the Bengali nationalist movement. As part of the operation, the Pakistani forces performed the 1971 ...
* Bangladesh Liberation War
* Akhira massacre
* Bakhrabad massacre
Bakhrabad massacre ( bn, বাখরাবাদ গণহত্যা) was a massacre of the Hindu population of Bakhrabad village, in the district of the Comilla, on 24 May 1971 by the Pakistani army with the help of Al Badr
Al-Badr ( a ...
* Bengali Genocide Remembrance Day
Genocide Remembrance Day ( bn, গণহত্যা স্মরণ দিবস ''Gaṇahatyā Smaraṇ Dibas'') is a national day of remembrance in Bangladesh observed on 25 March in commemoration of the victims of the Bangladesh genocide du ...
* Burunga massacre
* Jinjira massacre
The Jinjira massacre ( bn, জিঞ্জিরা গণহত্যা) was a planned killing of civilians by the Pakistan army during the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971. The killing took place at the unions Jinjira, Kalindi and Shubhadya of ...
* Chuknagar massacre
Chuknagar massacre ( bn, চুকনগর গণহত্যা) was a massacre of Bengali Hindus committed by the Pakistan Army and local Razakars during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. The massacre took place on 20 May 1971 at Dumuria ...
* The Concert for Bangladesh
The Concert for Bangladesh (or Bangla Desh, as the country's name was originally spelt)Harry, p. 135. was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were he ...
, the first major benefit concert
A benefit concert or charity concert is a type of musical benefit performance (e.g., concert, show, or gala) featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate hu ...
* Movement demanding trial of war criminals of Bangladesh : 1972 to present
* Bangladesh Liberation War Library and Research Centre, a Digital Library, working to 'preserve and publicly distribute' the historical documents regarding the Liberation War of Bangladesh and Genocide of Innocent Bengali People in 1971.
References
Citations
Bibliography
* Abul Barkat, An Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act: Framework for a Realistic Solution Publisher: PRIP Trust (2001) ASIN: B005PWD15O
* Abul Barkat, Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Living with Vested Property (Published English and Bengali languages 2008, 2009)
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Further reading
Genocide in Bangladesh, 1971
A Gendercide Watch case study
State of Hindus in Bangladesh
External links
Bangladesh Genocide Archive
Whole nation should observe National Genocide Day
''New Age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consi ...
'', 14 March 2017
Call for international recognition and observance of genocide day
by Delwar Jahid
Bangladesh to seek UN recognition of 1971 genocide
Genocide Day today
''Hindustan Times
''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia.
It was founded by Sunder Singh Ly ...
'', 23 March 2017
''Hindustan Times
''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia.
It was founded by Sunder Singh Ly ...
'', 22 September 2016
By marking Genocide Day, Bangladesh seeks to remember what Pakistan wants to forget
Scroll.in, 25 March 2017
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bangladesh Genocide, 1971
Genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
20th-century mass murder in Asia
Bangladesh Liberation War
Bangladesh–Pakistan relations
Ethnic cleansing in Asia
Genocides in Asia
Mass murder in 1971
Massacres in Bangladesh
Pakistani war crimes
Rebellions in Pakistan
War crimes in Bangladesh
Massacres committed by Pakistan in East Pakistan
Persecution of Buddhists by Muslims
Massacres in 1971