Failure to recognise 1971 Bangladesh genocide by Pakistan undermines justice: Report
Brussels, May 16
The 1971 genocide carried out by the Pakistani military in erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, is not merely an issue between Dhaka and Islamabad but a crucial test of the credibility of the international human rights and humanitarian law framework, a report said on Saturday.
According to a report in 'The European Times', the failure of the international community to name this genocide amounts to injustice to both past and future generations.
"The 1971 genocide in Bangladesh is one of the most brutal, and yet most underrecognised, mass atrocities of the twentieth century. More than five decades on, the international community - and the United Nations in particular - has still not found the political courage to name it for what it was. That silence undermines international law, corrodes the credibility of 'never again', and denies justice and dignity to millions of victims and survivors," the report detailed.
"From March to December 1971, the military regime in Pakistan unleashed a campaign of extermination in what was then East Pakistan, aimed at crushing Bengali demands for autonomy and, ultimately, independence. It began in the night of 25 March with Operation Searchlight in Dhaka: student dormitories and university departments were stormed, professors and activists were dragged out and shot, and entire neighbourhoods were subjected to indiscriminate fire," it added.
The report noted that the violence was not a chaotic outbreak but a coordinated operation by the Pakistani military regime targeting a national community that was seeking independence from Pakistan.
In the months that followed, atrocities spread across Bangladesh on a massive scale. Estimates suggest that those killed range from hundreds of thousands to as many as three million, while around 10 million people fled to India, and over 10 million were displaced internally.
"Mass graves around Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Comilla testify to the scale of the slaughter. University campuses became execution sites. Rural areas that were thought to sympathise with the independence movement were subjected to scorched earth tactics: villages were burnt, crops destroyed, and homes reduced to ash," the report noted.
Highlighting the systematic use of sexual violence during the 1971 atrocities, the report said that between 200,000 and 400,000 women were raped by Pakistani soldiers and allied militias. Many survivors were allegedly held for weeks or months in what they described as "rape camps".
"Sexual violence was deployed strategically - to terrorise communities, to stigmatise women for life, and to signal that the emerging Bengali nation itself was something to be violated and humiliated," the report added.
The report noted that religious minorities, particularly Hindus, were targeted with extreme brutality.
"In practice, the labels 'Bengali', 'Hindu' and 'Indian' were treated as interchangeable. Hindus were branded 'Indian agents', and in some instances, written orders instructed soldiers to kill them on sight. Although Hindus were a minority of the population, they formed a clear majority of those who fled into India, a stark indicator of targeted persecution," it stated.
Criticising the global community's stance on the atrocities committed by the Pakistani military, the report said that for an organisation that "invokes the lessons of the Holocaust" and repeats the mantra "never again", the United Nations' continued failure to recognise the Bangladesh genocide represents a "profound moral and institutional contradiction".
— IANS
Reader Comments
It's heartbreaking to read about the systematic targeting of Hindus and the mass displacement of 10 million people to India. My family in West Bengal still talks about those days. The Pakistani military's actions were not just against Bengalis - they were crimes against humanity. We need global recognition of this genocide, not just for justice but for history.
As someone from the West, I'm ashamed that this genocide is barely taught in our schools. The scale of atrocities - up to 3 million killed, 400,000 women raped - is staggering. This report is a wake-up call for the UN and Western governments. We can't pick and choose which genocides to acknowledge.
Respectfully, I think we need to be careful here. While the atrocities were indeed horrific, labelling everything as 'genocide' can sometimes politicize history. The focus should be on healing and ensuring such events never happen again, not just on naming. But yes, the victims deserve acknowledgment and justice.
The part about sexual violence being used as a 'strategic weapon' is chilling. As a woman, reading about those rape camps makes me furious. The world must not forget the women of 1971 who suffered unimaginable horrors. This report is a necessary step in breaking the silence around wartime sexual violence.
I read the full report and it's devastating. The international community's silence is a moral failure, plain and simple. India played a crucial role in 1971 by giving shelter to millions of refugees and intervening militarily. It's time the
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