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Lemkin Institute

Pakistan Must Apologise For Its Genocide During 1971 Liberation War, Reiterates Bangladesh

The diplomatic ties between the two neighbours have tainted as Dhaka continues to accuse Pakistan of war crimes that it never owns up to half a century later.

[Credit IMAGE: AP]

Bangladesh has renewed its demands for a long overdue apology from Pakistan for the 1971 genocide, killings, and atrocities against the Bangladeshis as the former President General Pervez Musharraf, once charged with high treason, passed away aged 79 in exile. Dhaka has been demanding that Islamabad must immediately accept accountability for the genocide and apologize to the state of Bangladesh for wreaking alleged brutality and massacre during the Liberation War.

On Sunday, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said Bangladesh wants Pakistan to “seek apology publicly with a formal announcement” for the atrocities committed in 1971.

“You first need to seek an apology publicly. Otherwise, I have a political reason….if it (apology publicly) happens first, I can argue for you. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for me. I can’t do that. It’s pure and simple,” he told reporters while sharing what he conveyed to State Minister for Foreign Affairs of Pakistan Hina Rabbani Khar, reported The Daily Star.

On March 25, 1971, Pakistan Army launched ‘Operation Searchlight’ to quell the Bengali nationalist movement in former East Pakistan, after refusing the founding leader of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to come to power after he won the election. Pakistan's then President Yahya Khan, under the pressure of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), plotted to overthrow Rahman as Pakistan wanted the Bengalis to stay away.


Pakistan's Army then precipitated the 1971 Bangladesh genocide in its efforts to take control of all of East Pakistan in which between 300,000 and 3,000,000 Bengalis were killed, women were brutally raped, and an estimated 10 million fled to India in a mass exodus. The genocide is known to be worse than the 1937 Nanking Massacre of Chinese civilians by the Imperial Japanese Army military during the Second Sino-Japanese War.


Pakistan's extrajudicial killings targetted Bengali intelligentsia and Hindus, alongside the Muslim Bengali nationalists during Operation Searchlight. India scrambled to assist Bangladesh in pushing back the Pakistani forces by aiding the Bangladeshi resistance army known as the Mukti Bahini. The Indian military's direct intervention later led to Pakistan's unconditional surrender.

India's ex-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, right, welcomes then Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. [Photo Credit: AP]