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Tuesday, December 6, 2011

[FutureOfBangladesh] AN ARTICLE FROM PAKISTANI FORUM !!!!!!!!



 
 
 
 
 

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Pakistan's first two militant Islamist groups, Al-Badar and Al-Shams – by Nadeem F. Paracha


Violent ghosts
Ever since 2009, the secular Awami League government in Bangladesh has been moving the country's law enforcing institutions and courts against various members of the Bangladeshi Jamat-i-Islami and other rightist groups. The League accuses their members of taking part in the genocide that took place against Bengali nationalists in 1971.
Thousands of men, women and children were said to have been slaughtered and disgraced in what was then East Pakistan. Pakistanis have mostly kept quiet about its army's violent role in what the world at large proclaimed was a systematic genocide by West Pakistani military against the Bengali-speaking majority in the former East Pakistan. Pakistan's textbooks too are silent about the bloody episode that eventually heralded the full impact of the Bangladeshi liberation war, ripping away East Pakistan from the western wing.
Even though, over the years some Pakistani intellectuals and historians have begun to sincerely investigate the army's role in the bloodshed, there's another aspect of this unfortunate chunk of hidden history that is still to be pulled out and debated. This chunk has to do with certain groups of civilians who were part of the violence. This was also perhaps the first case in which the military establishment had used religion to explain away something that was overwhelmingly an atrocity committed against an oppressed people. Uniformed men who went about bludgeoning so-called Bengali 'traitors' (including women and children) claimed they were doing so to defend Islam and Pakistan.
The military was not alone. It also had active civilian backers. First in line in this respect was the Jamat-i-Islami (JI). Though the JI was kept at bay by the secular Ayub Khan dictatorship throughout the 1960s in West Pakistan, it suddenly gained rapid favour from the short-lived regime of General Yahya Khan. He began proceedings by patronising the Jamat (and a few pro-establishment parties) to help him neutralise the momentous rise of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and the secular nationalist groups in East Pakistan, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
In spite of the backing the JI and some other right-wing parties received from the Yahya dictatorship, they were routed by progressive and secular parties in both East and West Pakistan during the 1970 general election. Unwilling to hand over power to the majority party (the Bengali-dominated Awami League), Yahya's army went to war with not only the incensed Bengali nationalists (backed by India), but also against innocent and unarmed Bengali civilians.
This action also generated the first ever case of a Pakistani state institution molding an Islamist civilian militant unit, something that would become (albeit clandestine) policy of certain intelligence agencies in Pakistan during and after the Afghan civil war in the 1980s, with the backing of the CIA. Before all the vicious sectarian and Islamist groups that began cropping up during the Ziaul Haq dictatorship in the 1980s, there were Al-Badar and Al-Shams.
Author Tarek Fatah in his explosive book, Chasing a Mirage, Hussain Haqqani in Between Mosque & Military and Jahangir Satti in The Ruling Enemy, all discuss in some detail these groups that were said to have been formed by the military intelligence to help the Yahya dictatorship tackle Bengali nationalists. Fatah and Satti maintain that both Al-Badar and Al-Shams were formed by General Rao Farman Ali – whom Satti describes as a 'fanatic who was good at exploiting religious sentiments.'
The two groups were made up of militants from the Jamat-i-Islami and its student-wing, the IJT. Rao also recruited some youth who were sympathetic to the pro-establishment, Pakistan Muslim League. According to Haqqani, after a list was drawn containing a number of left-wing Bengali intellectuals, journalists, student leaders and politicians who were to be eliminated, Al-Badar and Shams went to work in March, 1971.
History outside of Pakistani textbooks accuses these groups of working like death squads — killing, looting and disgracing Bengalis whom they accused of being 'anti-Islam'. Al-Badar was made up of educated JI and IJT recruits, while Shams was sewed together by using non-Bengali madressa students, Muslim League sympathisers and members of the Nizam-i-Islam party.
Many of those who took part in the atrocities managed to escape justice because they slipped out of East Pakistan after the military suffered defeat at the hands of Bengali nationalists and the Indian army. However, a number of former Badar and Shams members who stayed behind lost their lives in revenge killings by Bengali radicals.
Many Shams and Badar members who escaped quit their respective political parties and decided to lead low-profile lives, while others continued being part of the Jamat. However, in 2009, the Bangladesh government reopened cases of treason and genocide against the Bangladeshi amir of the Jamat-i-Islami, Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, who is alleged to have led Al-Badar's notorious campaign against Bengali intellectuals, politicians and civilians in 1971.
Interestingly the Jamat-i-Islami in Pakistan, many of whose members and youth played a leading role in Badar and Shams activities, has avoided any talk of this aspect of its past. But whenever some Jamat members have decided to tackle this question, they say the party only 'played a role in trying to save Pakistan and its Islamic character' because — according to the Jamat — 'Bengalis were being manipulated by Hindus (India),' as opposed to being blatantly oppressed and discriminated against by their former West Pakistani compatriots.
And so convenience hides all that is ungainly in the past.
Source: Dawn

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4 Responses to "Pakistan's first two militant Islamist groups, Al-Badar and Al-Shams – by Nadeem F. Paracha"

  1. aslam arain says:
    The Original Sin
    The government must form a commission to probe into the war crimes of 1971
    Ahmede Hussain
    During Bangladesh's liberation war three million people died, one-third of the country's population was displaced, 200,000 women were raped and hundreds and thousands were maimed. The occupying Pakistani army, which started the butchering in the name of Operation Searchlight on the gory night of March 25, 1971, took help from its local collaborators by forming several paramilitary groups such as the Peace Committee, Razakar, Al Badr and Al Shams. Formed by members of Jamaat-e-Islam, Nezam-e-Islam Party and the Muslim League, these groups unleashed a reign of terror during the Muktijudho by picking up innocent Bangladeshis and handing them over to the Pakistani army or forcing women into sexual slavery in the camps of the Pakistanis. Memories are still fresh and the copies of newspapers printed during that time are littered with evidence of war crimes. Hundreds of mass graves have been discovered in which the bodies of innocent civilians were dumped by the collaborators of the Pakistani army.
    The trial of these killers and rapists started soon after independence, some of these vile people were arrested, most of the leaders of Jamaat, Nezam-e-Islam and Muslim League, which were banned, were either on the run or had fled the country. A Razakar (collaborator) was executed for killing.
    The process was stopped in 1975 when a string of bloody coups witnessed the murder of the country's founding fathers. A known supporter of the Pakistani army was made the Prime Minister, the killers and rapists were set free, and infamous Razakars, Al Badrs and Al Shams members like Khan A Sabur, Golam Azam, Matiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Mojahed, were allowed to form political parties again in 1978. These notorious criminals have been allowed to spread their tentacles by the subsequent governments, the most shameless example has been in 2001 when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, founded by a valiant freedom fighter Major General Ziaur Rahman, formed an electoral alliance with the Jamaat, a party that actively opposed Bangladesh's independence. The alliance, after it won the elections, has made two known collaborators of the Pakistani army, ministers. Nizami, who headed the Al Badr paramilitary in 1971, which killed teachers, writers, doctors and journalists on December 14, 1971, has become a minister of Bangladesh, the birth of which he was opposed to less than four decades ago.
    Jamaat or the Razakars-Al Badr-Al Shams have never apologised for the war crimes its members have commited or the criminal activities it has been involved in as a political entity in 1971. On the contrary, the party and its leaders have always held the view that no war crime has ever taken place in 1971. A few months ago the Acting Secretary General of the party has told journalists that there were no war criminals in the country and another stooge of the party Shah Hannan has called Bangladesh's war of independence a mere civil war. A freedom fighter has been assaulted this month at a programme organised by the Jamaat supporters. These people had the audacity to set up a fake 'Muktijudho Parishad' that claims to be for the welfare of the Muktijudhos which did not stop the organisers from humiliating a freedom fighter who had demanded that war criminals be punished.
    The necessity for the trial of the killers and rapists of 1971 has always been the demand of the people of this country. It has especially gained momentum since the current caretaker government assumed power on January 11 last year and has declared to reform the country's politics. Hordes of suspected corrupt people have been arrested, most of whom have thought themselves beyond the reach of law. Crimes committed years ago have been unearthed and have had light shed upon them. The Chief Adviser, the Chief of the Army and the Chief Election Commissioner have voiced their opposition to the war crimes, calling the participation of the war criminals uncalled for. In the electoral laws that the current government has proposed it is stipulated that no war criminal will be able to run for the office. Yet the government has so far shied away from forming a tribunal or fact-finding committee to probe into the war crimes. In fact, the outcome of the next general election will be flawed if the killers and rapists of 1971 are allowed to participate in it, and if, like the previous general elections, some of them make it to the parliament.
    It is indeed a shame on our conscience as a nation that the deaths of so many martyrs who have laid down their lives for the liberation of our country have not been avenged, and that we, as a nation, have collectively failed to enforce justice on the rapists who have perpetrated one of the worst war crimes in human history. This government, as it has taken so many steps to clean our politics of unscrupulous elements, must also start the process of trying the war criminals by forming a commission to probe into the war crimes. The government has sought the help of the UN in this regard, we know, but it has so far taken very few measures to find out the criminals and bring them to justice so that in the next election they will not be able to take part. Every contestant who wants to run for government office must disclose details like what he or she did or where he or she lived in 1971.
    It is understandable that the goal of the caretaker government is to hold a free and fair election and hand over power to the elected representatives of the people. We know that the government is only a few months away from holding the elections, but it is also true that the government cannot deny its responsibility of trying a war crime tribunal as it is long overdue and there is a growing demand for it. This government has done many things that its predecessors could not; trying the war criminals is the only issue in which it is following the footsteps of the previous regimes. It is the expectation of the people that before it leaves, the government will form a war crime commission with a sitting high court judge at its helm to glean into the war crimes committed in 1971. This commission will refer the cases to the war crime tribunal that will be formed later on.
    One reason why we have not been able to establish the rule of law is because we have not been able to punish those who have committed acts of murder, rape and arson during the very birth of our nation. This is our original sin, the sin that is still stalking us. It is the responsibility of this government to help us atone for that sin.
  2. aslam arain says:
    Razakar (Bengali: রাজাকার) was the name given to a paramilitary force organized by the Pakistan Army during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.
    The word razakar, originating from Persian, literally means "volunteer". The Razakar force was composed of mostly pro-Pakistani Bengalis and Urdu-speaking migrants living in erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Initially, the force was under the command of local pro-Pakistani committees, but through the East Pakistan Razakar Ordinance (promulgated by General Tikka Khan on 1 June 1971) and a Ministry of Defence ordinance (promulgated 7 September 1971), Razakars were recognized as members of the Pakistan Army. Razakars were allegedly associated with many of the atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army during the 9-month war (see 1971 Bangladesh atrocities).
    These Pakistani offsprings were organized into Brigades of around 3-4000 volunteers , mainly armed with Light Infantry weapons provided by the Pakistani Army. Each Razakar Brigade was attached as an auxiliary to two Pakistani Regular Army Brigades, and their main function was to arrest and detain nationalist Bengali suspects. Usually such suspects were often tortured to death in custody. The Razakars were trained in the conventional army fashion by the Pakistan Army.
    Following the liberation of East Pakistan as the independent country of Bangladesh, most of the leading Razakars, allegedly including Ghulam Azam, fled to Pakistan (previously West Pakistan). Ghulam Azam maintains that he went to Pakistan to participate in the Annual General Meeting of his organization, the Jamaat-e-Islami, but he was forced to remain overseas until General Ziaur Rahman allowed him to return to Bangladesh. Many of the lower ranking Razakars who remained in Bangladesh were killed in the course of reprisals immediately after the end of fighting while as many as 36,000 were imprisoned. Of the latter many were later freed mainly because of pressure from US and China who backed Pakistan in the war, and because Pakistan was holding 200,000 Bengali speaking military and civilian personnel who were stranded in West Pakistan during the war.
    After the restoration of democracy in 1992, an unofficial and self-proclaimed "People's Court" (Bengali: গণআদালত Gônoadalot) "sentenced" Ghulam Azam and his ten accomplices to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, as the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party was already a part of the ruling alliance in Bangladesh, the "verdict" was ignored. Moreover, the then Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government re-granted Bangladeshi nationality to Ghulam Azam, as it had been taken from him after the war. Subdued during the rule of Awami League from 1996-2001, Jamaat-e-Islami returned in full force after the next election in October 2001 in which a four party alliance led by BNP won a landslide victory. The new leader of Jamaat after Ghulam Azam's retirement, Motiur Rahman Nizami, a Razakar and among the ten people tried by the Gônoadalot, became an influential minister in the government.
    The word রাজাকার razakar today carries the meaning "traitor" in common Bangladeshi Bengali parlance, similar to the usage of the word Quisling after the Second World War.
    reference : wikpedia
  3. aslam arain says:
    Little Background of Al-Badar and Al-Shams
    The Al-Badr
    The Al-Badr was the paramilitary wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) that earned infamy for its collaboration with the Pakistan Army against the Bengali nationalist movement in the Bangladesh Liberation War. The group is blamed for organising the mass killings of Bengali civilians, religious and ethnic minorities. The group is identified as one of the leading perpetrators of the 1971 killing of Bengali intellectuals. The present chief of the Jamaat, Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami headed the Al-Badr organisation as the all-Pakistan Commander in Chief during the war. The group was banned by the independent government of Bangladesh, but most of its members had fled the country during and after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which led to Bangladesh's independence.
    On 25 March 1971, after beginning the Bangladesh Liberation War, Pakistani military forces required military support from Bengali supporters who still wanted to live with Pakistan, or did not like Indian interaction in the movement; as well as the non-Bengali muhajirs in order to abolish the independence fighters of Bangladesh, the Mukti Bahini, Hemayet Bahini and Kaderiya Bahini. The Al Badar were formed to detect these independence fighters and to have guides as well as co-fighters who were familiar with the local terrain.
    The force was composed of madrasa students-teachers, Bengali supporters of Muslim League and Jamaat E Islami, and muhajirs coming from non-Bengali part of India.
    There were three type of Paramilitary forces Pakistan formed,
    1. Razakars: refuges who came from other parts of India during separation of India and Pakistan, and setteled in East PAkistan.
    2. Al-Badar: Bengali Muslim Students from Colleges, universities and madrasah, who were loyal to Jamat-e-islami.
    3. Al-Shams: Bengali Madrasah Students, teachers & supporters of islamic parties other than Jamat-E-Islami (these smaller parties included Nejam-e-Islami and various factions of Muslim League).
    Al-Badar was very organized para military force among those three forces, they had their own hirarchy of organization & reporting system.
    The Al-Shams
    The Al-Shams was a paramilitary wing of several Islamist parties in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), that with the Pakistan Army and the Al-Badr, is held responsible for conducting a mass killing campaign against Bengali nationalists, civilians, religious and ethnic minorities in the Bangladesh Liberation War. The group was banned by the independent government of Bangladesh, but most of its members had fled the country during and after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which led to Bangladesh's independence.
    Very little is known about the structure and composition of the group. Newspaper coverage from that period indicates that it was an organ of the razakar para-military force. Jamaat-e-Islami was the largest Islamic party in Pakistan at that time. It seems that other Islamic factions, including Nezam-e-Islami and Muslim League, established the Al-Shams (meaning "the Sun"), as a response to Jamaat-e-Islami's strong influence on the military junta. Jamaat's paramilitary, Al-Badr, was a close ally of the occupation army, and Al-Shams wanted to compete for that status.
    Tasks
    The Al Badar were assigned a variety of combat and non-combat tasks including:
    · Taking part in the operations
    · Spying against Muktibahini
    · Interrogation
    · Working as the guides of the regular army
    · Assassination
    · Detecting and killing Mukti Bahni Soildiers
    · Providing supply line to front army
  4. Muslim says:
    Read the facts about Albadar and Al-Shams in view of historical proofs….But these seculars will never shut their mouth

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BANGLADESH GENOCIDE , 1971.
 
An online archive of chronology of events, documentations, audio, video, images, media reports and eyewitness accounts of the 1971 Genocide in Bangladesh in the hands of Pakistan army.

Genocide

"…… we were told to kill the hindus and Kafirs (non-believer in God). One day in June, we cordoned a village and were ordered to kill the Kafirs in that area. We found all the village women reciting from the Holy Quran, and the men holding special congregational prayers seeking God's mercy. But they were unlucky. Our commanding officer ordered us not to waste any time."
Confession of a Pakistani Soldier
kill29.jpg
It all started with Operation Searchlight, a planned military pacification carried out by the Pakistan Army started on 25 March, 1971 to curb the Bengali nationalist movement by taking control of the major cities on March 26, and then eliminating all opposition, political or military, within one month. Before the beginning of the operation, all foreign journalists were systematically deported from Bangladesh. The main phase of Operation Searchlight ended with the fall of the last major town in Bengali hands in mid May.
According to New York Times (3/28/71) 10,000 people were killed; New York Times (3/29/71) 5,000-7,000 people were killed in Dhaka; The Sydney Morning Herald (3/29/71) 10,000 – 100,000 were killed; New York Times (4/1/71) 35,000 were killed in Dhaka during operation searchlight.
The operation also began the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. These systematic killings served only to enrage the Bengalis, which ultimately resulted in the secession of East Pakistan later in December, 1971. The international media and reference books in English have published casualty figures which vary greatly; 200,000–3,000,000 for Bangladesh as a whole.
There is only one word for this: Genocide.

Genocide in Bangladesh, 1971

pakistani-army-shooting.jpgThe mass killings in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in 1971 vie with the annihilation of the Soviet POWs, the holocaust against the Jews, and the genocide in Rwanda as the most concentrated act of genocide in the twentieth century. In an attempt to crush forces seeking independence for East Pakistan, the West Pakistani military regime unleashed a systematic campaign of mass murder which aimed at killing millions of Bengalis, and likely succeeded in doing so.
In national elections held in December 1970, the Awami League won an overwhelming victory across Bengali territory. On February 22, 1971 the generals in West Pakistan took a decision to crush the Awami League and its supporters. It was recognized from the first that a campaign of genocide would be necessary to eradicate the threat: "Kill three million of them," said President Yahya Khan at the February conference, "and the rest will eat out of our hands." (Robert Payne, Massacre [1972], p. 50.) On March 25 the genocide was launched. The university in Dacca (Dhaka) was attacked and students exterminated in their hundreds. Death squads roamed the streets of Dacca, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. It was only the beginning. "Within a week, half the population of Dacca had fled, and at least 30,000 people had been killed. Chittagong, too, had lost half its population. All over East Pakistan people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April some thirty million people [!] were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military." (Payne, Massacre, p. 48.) Ten million refugees fled to India, overwhelming that country's resources and spurring the eventual Indian military intervention. (The population of Bangladesh/East Pakistan at the outbreak of the genocide was about 75 million.)
The Guinness Book of Records lists the Bangladesh Genocide as one of the top 5 genocides in the 20th century.

The gendercide against Bengali men

The war against the Bengali population proceeded in classic gendercidal fashion. According to Anthony Mascarenhas:
There is no doubt whatsoever about the targets of the genocide. They were: (1) The Bengali militarymen of the East Bengal Regiment, the East Pakistan Rifles, police and para-military Ansars and Mujahids. (2) The Hindus — "We are only killing the men; the women and children go free. We are soldiers not cowards to kill them …" I was to hear in Comilla [site of a major military base] [Comments R.J. Rummel: "One would think that murdering an unarmed man was a heroic act" (Death By Government, p. 323)] (3) The Awami Leaguers — all office bearers and volunteers down to the lowest link in the chain of command. (4) The students — college and university boys and some of the more militant girls. (5) Bengali intellectuals such as professors and teachers whenever damned by the army as "militant." (Anthony Mascarenhas, The Rape of Bangla Desh [Delhi: Vikas Publications, 1972(?)], pp. 116-17.)
Mascarenhas's summary makes clear the linkages between gender and social class (the "intellectuals," "professors," "teachers," "office bearers," and — obviously — "militarymen" can all be expected to be overwhelmingly if not exclusively male, although in many cases their families died or fell victim to other atrocities alongside them). In this respect, the Bangladesh events can be classed as a combined gendercide and elitocide, with both strategies overwhelmingly targeting males for the most annihilatory excesses.
London, 6/13/71). The Sunday Times….."The Government's policy for East Bengal was spelled out to me in the Eastern Command headquarters at Dacca. It has three elements:
1. The Bengalis have proved themselves unreliable and must be ruled by West Pakistanis;
2. The Bengalis will have to be re-educated along proper Islamic lines. The – Islamization of the masses – this is the official jargon – is intended to eliminate secessionist tendencies and provide a strong religious bond with West Pakistan;
3. When the Hindus have been eliminated by death and fight, their property will be used as a golden carrot to win over the under privileged Muslim middle-class. This will provide the base for erecting administrative and political structures in the future."

Bengali man and boys massacred by the West Pakistani regime.

Bengali man and boys massacred by the West Pakistani regime. Younger men and adolescent boys, of whatever social class, were equally targets. According to Rounaq Jahan, "All through the liberation war, able-bodied young men were suspected of being actual or potential freedom fighters. Thousands were arrested, tortured, and killed. Eventually cities and towns became bereft of young males who either took refuge in India or joined the liberation war." Especially "during the first phase" of the genocide, he writes, "young able-bodied males were the victims of indiscriminate killings." ("Genocide in Bangladesh," in Totten et al., Century of Genocide, p. 298.) R.J. Rummel likewise writes that "the Pakistan army [sought] out those especially likely to join the resistance — young boys. Sweeps were conducted of young men who were never seen again. Bodies of youths would be found in fields, floating down rivers, or near army camps. As can be imagined, this terrorized all young men and their families within reach of the army. Most between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five began to flee from one village to another and toward India. Many of those reluctant to leave their homes were forced to flee by mothers and sisters concerned for their safety." (Death By Government, p. 329.) Rummel describes (p. 323) a chilling gendercidal ritual, reminiscent of Nazi procedure towards Jewish males: "In what became province-wide acts of genocide, Hindus were sought out and killed on the spot. As a matter of course, soldiers would check males for the obligated circumcision among Moslems. If circumcised, they might live; if not, sure death."
Robert Payne describes scenes of systematic mass slaughter around Dacca (Dhaka) that, while not explicitly "gendered" in his account, bear every hallmark of classic gender-selective roundups and gendercidal slaughters of non-combatant men:
Bengali intellectuals murdered and dumped at dockside in Dacca.In the dead region surrounding Dacca, the military authorities conducted experiments in mass extermination in places unlikely to be seen by journalists. At Hariharpara, a once thriving village on the banks of the Buriganga River near Dacca, they found the three elements necessary for killing people in large numbers: a prison in which to hold the victims, a place for executing the prisoners, and a method for disposing of the bodies. The prison was a large riverside warehouse, or godown, belonging to the Pakistan National Oil Company, the place of execution was the river edge, or the shallows near the shore, and the bodies were disposed of by the simple means of permitting them to float downstream. The killing took place night after night. Usually the prisoners were roped together and made to wade out into the river. They were in batches of six or eight, and in the light of a powerful electric arc lamp, they were easy targets, black against the silvery water. The executioners stood on the pier, shooting down at the compact bunches of prisoners wading in the water. There were screams in the hot night air, and then silence. The prisoners fell on their sides and their bodies lapped against the shore. Then a new bunch of prisoners was brought out, and the process was repeated. In the morning the village boatmen hauled the bodies into midstream and the ropes binding the bodies were cut so that each body drifted separately downstream. (Payne, Massacre [Macmillan, 1973], p. 55.)
Strikingly similar and equally hellish scenes are described in the case-studies of genocide in Armenia and the Nanjing Massacre of 1937.

How many died?

Bangladeshi authorities claim that 3 million people were killed, while the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, an official Pakistan Government investigation, put the figure as low as 26,000 civilian casualties. The fact is that the number of dead in Bangladesh in 1971 was almost certainly well into seven figures. It was one of the worst genocides of the World War II era, outstripping Rwanda (800,000 killed) and probably surpassing even Indonesia (1 million to 1.5 million killed in 1965-66).
As R.J. Rummel writes:
The human death toll over only 267 days was incredible. Just to give for five out of the eighteen districts some incomplete statistics published in Bangladesh newspapers or by an Inquiry Committee, the Pakistani army killed 100,000 Bengalis in Dacca, 150,000 in Khulna, 75,000 in Jessore, 95,000 in Comilla, and 100,000 in Chittagong. For eighteen districts the total is 1,247,000 killed. This was an incomplete toll, and to this day no one really knows the final toll. Some estimates of the democide [Rummel's "death by government"] are much lower — one is of 300,000 dead — but most range from 1 million to 3 million. … The Pakistani army and allied paramilitary groups killed about one out of every sixty-one people in Pakistan overall; one out of every twenty-five Bengalis, Hindus, and others in East Pakistan. If the rate of killing for all of Pakistan is annualized over the years the Yahya martial law regime was in power (March 1969 to December 1971), then this one regime was more lethal than that of the Soviet Union, China under the communists, or Japan under the military (even through World War II). (Rummel, Death By Government, p. 331.)
People regard that the best option is to regard "3 million" as not an absolute but an arbitrary number. The proportion of men versus women murdered is impossible to ascertain, but a speculation might be attempted. If we take the highest estimates for both women raped and Bengalis killed (400,000 and 3 million, respectively); if we accept that half as many women were killed as were raped; and if we double that number for murdered children of both sexes (total: 600,000), we are still left with a death-toll that is 80 percent adult male (2.4 million out of 3 million). Any such disproportion, which is almost certainly on the low side, would qualify Bangladesh as one of the worst gendercides against men in the last half-millennium.

Who was responsible?

"For month after month in all the regions of East Pakistan the massacres went on," writes Robert Payne. "They were not the small casual killings of young officers who wanted to demonstrate their efficiency, but organized massacres conducted by sophisticated staff officers, who knew exactly what they were doing. Muslim soldiers, sent out to kill Muslim peasants, went about their work mechanically and efficiently, until killing defenseless people became a habit like smoking cigarettes or drinking wine. … Not since Hitler invaded Russia had there been so vast a massacre." (Payne, Massacre, p. 29.)
There is no doubt that the mass killing in Bangladesh was among the most carefully and centrally planned of modern genocides. A cabal of five Pakistani generals orchestrated the events: President Yahya Khan, General Tikka Khan, chief of staff General Pirzada, security chief General Umar Khan, and intelligence chief General Akbar Khan. The U.S. government, long supportive of military rule in Pakistan, supplied some $3.8 million in military equipment to the dictatorship after the onset of the genocide, "and after a government spokesman told Congress that all shipments to Yahya Khan's regime had ceased." (Payne, Massacre, p. 102.)
hindu-racism.jpgThe genocide and gendercidal atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers. These "willing executioners" were fuelled by an abiding anti-Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority. "Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. Said Pakistan General Niazi, 'It was a low lying land of low lying people.' The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that [should] best be exterminated. As to the Moslem Bengalis, they were to live only on the sufferance of the soldiers: any infraction, any suspicion cast on them, any need for reprisal, could mean their death. And the soldiers were free to kill at will. The journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Punjabi captain as telling him, 'We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one.' This is the arrogance of Power." (Rummel, Death By Government, p. 335.)

Eyewitness accounts

The atrocities of the razakars in killing the Bengalis equaled those of their Pakistani masters. An excerpt from an article written in the Azad, dated January 15, 1972, underscores the inhuman atrocities of the Pakistani troops and their associates, the razakar and al-Badr forces:
'….The people of Narail can bear witness to the reign of terror, the inhuman atrocities, inflicted on them after (General) Yahya let loose his troops to do what they would. After March 25, many people fled Jessore in fear of their lives, and took refuge in Narail and its neighboring localities. Many of them were severely bashed by the soldiers of Yahya and lost their lives. Very few people ever returned. Bhayna is a flourishing village near Narail. Ali Akbar is a well-known figure there. On April 8, the Pakistani troops surrounded the village on the pretext that it was a sanctuary for freedom fighters. Just as fish are caught in a net so too were the people of this village all assembled, in an open field. Then everyone- men, women, and children–were all forced to line up. Young men between the ages of 25 and 30 were lined up separately. 45 people were shot to death on the spot. Three of Ali Akbar's brothers were killed there. Ali Akbar was able to save himself by lying on the ground. But no one else of that group was as fortunate. Nadanor was the Killing field. Every day 20 to 30 people were taken there with their hands tied behind their backs, and killed. The dead bodies would be flung into the river. Apart from this, a slaughter house was also readied for Bengalis. Manik, Omar, and Ashraf were sent to Jessore Cantonment for training and then brought to this slaughter house. Every day they would slaughter 9 to 12 persons here. The rate per person was Taka ten. On one particular day, 45 persons were slaughtered here. From April 15 to December 10, the butchery continued. It is gathered that 2,723 people lost their lives here. People were brought here and bashed, then their ears were cut off, and their eyes gouged out. Finally they were slaughtered… : The Chairman of the Peace Committee was Moulana Solaiman. With Dr. Abul Hussain and Abdul Rashid Mukhtar, he assisted in the genocide. Omar would proudly say, "During the day I am Omar, at night I am Shimar( legendary executioner famous for extreme cruelty). Don't you see my dagger? There are countless Kafirs (heretics) on it."

Chuknagar: The largest genocide during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971

chuknagar.jpg
Chuknagar is a small business town located in the Dumuria Thana of Khulna district and very close to the India Bangladesh border. In 71 thousands of refugees gathered in Chuknagar to go to Kolkata. According to a conservative account around ten thousand people were in Chuknagar waiting to cross the border.
In the early morning of May 10, the fatal day around 10am two trucks carrying Paki troops arrived at Kautala (then known as Patkhola). The Pakis were not many in number, most possibly a platoon or so. As soon as the Paki trucks stopped, the Pakis alighted from the truck carrying light machine guns (LMGs) and semi automatic rifles and opened fire on the public. Within a few minutes a lively town turned into a city of death.
The accounts of the two hundred interviewees were same. They differed only in details. "There were piled up dead bodies. Dead Kids' on dead mum's laps. Wives hugging their beloved husbands to protect them from killer bullets. Dads' hugging their daughters to shield them. Within a flash they all were just dead bodies. Blood streamed into the Bhadra river, it became a river of corps. A few hours later when the Paki bastards ran out of bullets, they killed the rest of the people with bayonet."
Source: Muntassir Mamun, The Archive of Liberation War, Bangabandhu and Bangladesh Research Institute

Further Documents and facts

  • Statistics Of Pakistan's Democide: Estimates, Calculations, And Sources – R. J. Rummel
  • Genocide 71
  • Massacre of Dhaka University students
  • Torture Cells
  • Killing Zones
  • Operation search light
  • Mass grave found in Bangladesh – Tribune India August, 1999
  • An Army Insider's Honest Expose of Atrocities in East Pakistan Debacle
  • Unearthing the killing fields in Mirpur Dhaka for mass graves – evidence of genocide
  • Bangladesh War of Independence: West Pakistani Soldiers Kill Catholic Priests – Jerome D'Costa
  • Genocide Seminar on Bangladesh 2007: An unprecedented step by a US
    Bangladesh Genocide Study Group at Kean University
  • "..It is Mujib's home district. Kill as many bastards as you can and make sure there is no Hindu left alive," I was ordered. – Colonel Nadir Ali, retired Pakistan Army Officer , Punjabi poet and short story writer

    Denials

    According to Gregory H. Stanton, President, Genocide Watch there are eight stages of a genocide. All of them are evident in the genocide commited by the Pakistan forces. The last of the eight stages is denial:
    It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims.

    Articles

  • The Mathematics of a Genocide – Abul Kasem
  • 269,000 people died in Bangladesh war, says new study
  • Nights and Days of Pakistani Butchers – Abul Kasem
  • Remembering 25th March: The Darkest Night – Dr. Ajoy Roy
  • Violation of Human Rights and Genocide in Bangladesh -M. Maniruzzaman Mia
  • Tale of an abandoned monument: Madhuri Lata still whimpers for her martyred husband and relatives
  • Never again? Genocide since 1945 – Scott Lamb
  • Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts: Chapter 9: Genocide in Bangladesh – Rounaq Jahan.
  • Sen. Edward Kennedy on the Hindu Genocide in East Bengal '71
  • The Legacy of the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh- Rabindranath Trivedi
  • Genocide 1971: What does the world know about it? – Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq
  • genocide.jpg

    Images

    * Genocide images 1, 2, 3 (Viewers discretion advised)


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    [FutureOfBangladesh] REMEMBERING 1971 !!!!!!!

    Dear All,
     
    Please watch the attached YOUTUBE VIDEO CLIPS to see the ATROCITIES done by the heinous  Pakistani army and their local aids , RAZAKARS & AL-BADARS.
    Raise your voice to hang these killers immediately.
     
    Respectfully,
    Muhammad Ali Manik, M.D.
    Member, Advisory Council,
    US Awami League.
     
    N.B. We believe in documentary, documentary tells the truth.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jRnekfc9_I&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL9F04C0CA782433E4


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