The atrocities in the 1971 civil war

[notsuperstitious]

There's a clear attempt to lower standards here by equating summary killings of civilian women and men with the death punishment many countries prescribe for people found guily of treason in war time.

How do you try people for treason, by looking down their pants? By making lists of professors and doctors?

 

[leonblack08]

^^^^^^^^^^

Most of us weren't even around during that eventful period, and we like to read and believe our version of history hence it feels like chewing on "Kala Naga". The Army was sent in to quash Indian backed insurgency, just as it's conducting now in FATA areas of Pakistan. By your theory one can argue that even now it's killing it's own citizens, but isn't that like saying, you can shoot but i won't fire back. What happened in the heat of the battle was regrettable yet unavoidable, however in the aftermath there were figures with vested interests who incited others to bare down on the subjects.

I get your point completely.But I would like to point out some thing extra.

In an interview during 1971,Gen.Zia ur Rahman said that ,"When the news of army cracking down on civilians came,we decided it was too much".And hence East Bengal Regiment mutinied and Zia on behalf of Mujib declared independence from Chittagong.

Now this same Ziaur Rahman and his men won the highest number of awards during 1965 war.he himself was "sitar-e-jannat".When people like him mutinied,it is clear that instead of cracking down on insurgents,(which was not needed in the first place had AL was given the deserving power to rule Pakistan.),W Pakistan army cracked down on unarmed civilians,mainly students and professors in the university area.

So the blame should go the wrong approach of the Military ruler and Bhutto.because after 25th March,there was no turning back.

Because Mujib wanted a Federation,not to be separated from Pakistan.But the crackdown on civilians just facilitated the Partition of Pakistan.


And at last,I agree once again that atrocities were committed by both sides,but the magnitude of war crime committed by W Pakistani troops and their local collaborators were much higher.

 

[Windjammer]

I get your point completely.But I would like to point out some thing extra.

In an interview during 1971,Gen.Zia ur Rahman said that ,"When the news of army cracking down on civilians came,we decided it was too much".And hence East Bengal Regiment mutinied and Zia on behalf of Mujib declared independence from Chittagong.

Now this same Ziaur Rahman and his men won the highest number of awards during 1965 war.he himself was "sitar-e-jannat".When people like him mutinied,it is clear that instead of cracking down on insurgents,(which was not needed in the first place had AL was given the deserving power to rule Pakistan.),W Pakistan army cracked down on unarmed civilians,mainly students and professors in the university area.

So the blame should go the wrong approach of the Military ruler and Bhutto.because after 25th March,there was no turning back.

Because Mujib wanted a Federation,not to be separated from Pakistan.But the crackdown on civilians just facilitated the Partition of Pakistan.


And at last,I agree once again that atrocities were committed by both sides,but the magnitude of war crime committed by W Pakistani troops and their local collaborators were much higher.

Elsewhere the same topic has been discussed to the bone, however let me ask you this question, No doubt East Pakistan was also my country, how did Mujib feel about the whole scenario, relatively speaking, Wasn't West Pakistan also his country...? Why was he adamant in shifting everything to Dacca, including the Capital, the State Bank and Naval HQ. Why he just couldn't come to Islamabad and run the country. ????

 

[oceanx]

...
When due rights are not appreciated, brotherhood changes into contempt, contempt to anger and anger to hatred
...

The man (or woman) who wrote this has what it takes to be a teacher of men! His/her original needs to be read by those across the Taiwan Straight as well ...

Just my humble 2 cents.

 

[blain2]

I understand, you don’t have an answer. I will leave you at that.

I am very much at peace not having an answer for you. I am sure you are over it.

 

[leonblack08]

Elsewhere the same topic has been discussed to the bone, however let me ask you this question, No doubt East Pakistan was also my country, how did Mujib feel about the whole scenario, relatively speaking, Wasn't West Pakistan also his country...? Why was he adamant in shifting everything to Dacca, including the Capital, the State Bank and Naval HQ. Why he just couldn't come to Islamabad and run the country. ????

We are going off-topic,but I will give you a reply.

In 1965,East Pakistan was left open as a bait for Indians to invade.No defence was planned to protect East Pakistan.
look at the irony,the soldiers of East Bengal Regiment were strapping mines on their bodies to go under Indian tanks to save Lahore.

If the rulers really felt that East Pakistan was their country,why didn't they do anything to protect East Pakistan from India??

Then came 1970 cyclone,hundreds of thousands died mainly due to the mismanagement of the Central Govt.

Now let us come to what Sheikh Mujib wanted through 6-points.

1. The constitution should provide for a Federation of Pakistan in its true sense based on the Lahore Resolution and the parliamentary form of government with supremacy of a Legislature directly elected on the basis of universal adult franchise.


2. The federal government should deal with only two subjects: Defence and Foreign Affairs, and all other residual subjects should be vested in the federating states.

3. Two separate, but freely convertible currencies for two wings should be introduced; or if this is not feasible, there should be one currency for the whole country, but effective constitutional provisions should be introduced to stop the flight of capital from East to West Pakistan. Furthermore, a separate Banking Reserve should be established and separate fiscal and monetary policy be adopted for East Pakistan.


4. The power of taxation and revenue collection should be vested in the federating units and the federal centre would have no such power. The federation would be entitled to a share in the state taxes to meet its expenditures.


5. There should be two separate accounts for the foreign exchange earnings of the two wings; the foreign exchange requirements of the federal government should be met by the two wings equally or in a ratio to be fixed; indigenous products should move free of duty between the two wings, and the constitution should empower the units to establish trade links with foreign countries.

6. East Pakistan should have a separate militia or paramilitary force.

Now tell me,what's so much about this,that could have partitioned Pakistan?

If these points were not ensured,how could we been sure if in another future battle with India,the "Western brothers" will not leave us as a "BAIT".

How could we been sure that another disastrous management wouldn't have taken place in future?
Central Govt. definitely acts slower,especially on these issues.Don't they?

Had these points been agreed,we would still be one country.

Why was he adamant in shifting everything to Dacca, including the Capital, the State Bank and Naval HQ. Why he just couldn't come to Islamabad and run the country. ????

The six-points doesn't mention that.

My knowledge is a bit limited on this issue.However,I will still give a reply.

1.What was the problem if Naval HQ was shifted to East Pakistan?wasn't it Pakistan?
The army and Air HQ were to remain in West,if I am not wrong.So what's the problem of shifting Naval HQ to EP.

The real problem was,that the military rulers of Pakistan at that time were fond of "Martial race theory".Since we Bengalis are not a part of that so called race,it poked their ego.



2.What was the problem if the capital was in Dhaka?East Pakistan was producing majority of the foreign money,using which Islamabad was being built.
Even the plan for Pakistan,if I am not wrong,was first proposed in Dhaka.Correct me if I am wrong.


If the rulers at that time really had thought their fellow citizens as brothers,there would have been no 1971 at first place.
Please don't come up with cooked up story that RAW planned everything.
A whole nation can not be fooled so easily by an intelligence agency which was just at its infancy.This is totally ridiculous.

The resentment grew with years of neglect.It does not happen over night.


We are straying off-topic,if you want to debate further,open a new thread I will join you.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Toxic_Pus, fateh71 and Leonblack08:

Impartial inquiry? The US state department sources are impartial and authentic enough for me as they were staunch supporters of pakistan then and YET their records clealy show what i've said.

The declassified US State Department sources, as Blain pointed out earlier, also indicate that the death toll was lower than the one claimed by some:

The historian branch of the State Department held a two-day conference on June 28 and 29 on US policy in South Asia between 1961 and 1972, inviting scholars from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to express their views on the declassified documents.

During the seminar, Bangladeshi scholars acknowledged that their official figure of more than 3 million killed during and after the military action was not authentic.

They said that the original figure was close to 300,000, which was wrongly translated from Bengali into English as three million.

Shamsher M. Chowdhury, the Bangladesh ambassador in Washington who was commissioned in the Pakistan Army in 1969 but had joined his country’s war of liberation in 1971, acknowledged that Bangladesh alone cannot correct this mistake. Instead, he suggested that Pakistan and Bangladesh form a joint commission to investigate the 1971 disaster and prepare a report.

Almost all scholars agreed that the real figure was somewhere between 26,000, as reported by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, and not three million, the official figure put forward by Bangladesh and India.

Prof Sarmila Bose, an Indian academic, told the seminar that allegations of Pakistani army personnel raping Bengali women were grossly exaggerated.

Based on her extensive interviews with eyewitnesses, the study also determines the pattern of conflict as three-layered: West Pakistan versus East Pakistan, East Pakistanis (pro-Independence) versus East Pakistanis (pro-Union) and the fateful war between India and Pakistan.

Prof Bose noted that no neutral study of the conflict has been done and reports that are passed on as part of history are narratives that strengthen one point of view by rubbishing the other. The Bangladeshi narratives, for instance, focus on the rape issue and use that not only to demonize the Pakistan army but also exploit it as a symbol of why it was important to break away from (West) Pakistan.

Prof Bose, a Bengali herself and belonging to the family of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, emphasized the need for conducting independent studies of the 1971 conflict to bring out the facts.
Sheikh Mujib wanted a confederation: US papers -DAWN - National; July 7, 2005

Now eat crow.

While asking for impartial inquiry you yourself have been throwing that 100000 biharis killed number that comes out of hamidur report?

That would be because Indians such as yourself have been fed these lies and one-sided propaganda, and either are too stupid to read beyond what you are spoon fed in order to inculcate hate for Pakistanis, or deliberately choose to remain ignorant.

In the case of Toxic_Pus it is obvious that the reason is his own dishonesty and duplicity, since the accounts of the atrocities committed by Bengalis on non-Bengalis are narrated in graphic detail, and figures of over a hundred thousand killed presented in the source he himself has used make his case against Pakistan, Rummel's Death by Government.

Here is an excerpt:

"Throughout East Pakistan, non-Bengali communities were assaulted, their members mutilated, tortured and butchered. Let the words of Anthony Mascarenhas, whose vigorous condemnation of the Pakistan democide in East Pakistan established his credentials, speak to this:

'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; but many thousands of others must go through what life remains for them with eyes gouged out and limbs amputated. More than 20,000 bodies of non-Bengalis have been found in the main towns, such as Chittagong, Khulna and Jessore. The real toll, I was told everywhere in East Bengal, may have been as high as 100,000, for thousands of non-Bengalis have vanished without a trace. The Government of Pakistan has let the world know about that first horror. What it has suppressed is the second and worse horror which followed when its own army took over the killing. West Pakistan officials privately calculate that altogether both sides have killed 250,000 people.'"

The total of 250,000 killed, including over a hundred thousand non-Bengalis before Operation Searchlight began, also fits in with the views of the Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian scholars at the conference organized by the State Department.

So no, there was no 'genocide', there were no millions killed by the PA, and while atrocities were committed by both sides and are regrettable, neither side is blameless here.

If you do want to argue genocide, then it was genocide in response to the genocide unleashed by the Bengali population of Eats Pakistan on its non-Bengali inhabitants, and Bangladeshis must first and foremost hold their own to task, including their 'freedom fighters' and ask why mass murder was committed by them, and whether their actions invited the equally criminal retaliation by the PA in the aftermath of the Bengali atrocities.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

And here are some more accounts of the atrocities, and an insight into the rage that blinded some of the Pakistan Army, its officers and soldiers, into committing equally criminal acts:

A description of the indiscriminate killing during this period has been given by an American engineer who was working on a construction project at Kaptai, near Chittagong:

Shortly after March 1, we received word from some British friends in Chittagong that Bengali mobs had begun looting and burning the homes and businesses of the West Pakistani residents and were beating, and in some cases killing, West Pakistanis as well as Hindus.

On the night of March 9, my expatriate staff and I decided to depart Kaptai. As we passed through Chittagong we noted three of four fires. A service station attendant told my driver these were homes and businesses of 'Biharis'.

We returned to Kaptai on March 23. There was a small Army garrison stationed at Kaptai. They were a part of the East African Rifles which was a regiment of Bengalis with mostly Punjabi officers and N.C.O.'s. The garrison was quartered in an old school building about 400 yards from our residences.

On the morning of March 26 around 9 a.m. we heard shooting coming from the school. I went to investigate and found a large crowd gathered there. Some of the crowd was shooting toward one of the upstairs school rooms. I was told that the previous night all Punjabis in the Army garrison (about 26 or 27) had been arrested and locked in the school-room. Now someone in the crowd was claiming that shots had come from the room. After removing a sheet of roofing several men with guns gathered around the opening and began firing into the room. After a few minutes they came down and began dispersing the crowd. I later learned that the commanding officer, who was under house arrest within sight of the school, was slowly beaten and bayoneted to death as his staff was being shot. The officer's wife, in a state of terror, asked the mob to kill her too. She was beaten to death. Their small son was spared and taken in by a Bengali family.

I met immediately with the local Awami League leader and the Power Station Manager, a Bengali named Shamsuddin. The Awami League leader said the people had been told to remain peaceful and that he had peace patrols roaming the area, but that he could not control the large mobs. Shamsuddin told me that the mobs had killed many Biharis the night before and thrown their bodies over the spillway of the dam. He said he just managed to talk the mob out of taking his three West Pakistani engineers but felt they were still in great danger .

All India radio began an almost continuous propaganda barrage of East Pakistan. This inflammatory propaganda roused the mobs in Kaptai to new frenzies. After all known Biharis, including at least two of our employees, had been killed, a search was begun for 'imposters'. On about the third day of the trouble we saw two Bengali soldiers marching away a servant who worked in the housing area. A few seconds later we heard a shot and ran out into the road. The servant had fallen partway down a ravine. A crowd quickly gathered and, when it became apparent the servant was still alive, dragged him up onto the road. One of the soldiers motioned the crowd away, knelt and very deliberately fired another bullet into the body. After a short while the death-Iimp body was dragged and rolled into the back of a pickup and hauled away. It had been found out that although the servant had been living in Kaptai over 20 years, he was born in India. By this time the mobs were killing anyone not a 'son-of-the-soil'.

Friends and acquaintances in Chittagong said that on the night of March 25 Bengali mobs descended on the homes of all known Biharis and especially those military personnel living outside their cantonment. The mobs slaughtered entire families and I heard many horrible descriptions of this massacre. The mutinous East Pakistan Rifles along with irregulars

laid siege to the Chittagong military cantonment. After seven or eight days the siege was broken by a relief detachment which had force-marched from the cantonment at Camilla. I am told that when the entrapped garrison broke out it was with a terrible vengeance. The slightest resistance was cause for annihilation of everyone in a particular area. For instance, the Army made a habit of destroying, by tank cannon, everything within a wide radius of hostile roadblocks. I saw the remains of a completely razed three to four square block area of Chittagong near the entrance to the port area. I was told that after encountering resistance here the Army encircled and set fire to the entire area and shot all who fled. Hundreds of men, women and children were said to have perished here.

When the East Pakistan Rifles and Bengali irregulars began retreating from the fighting around Chittagong, many of them passed through Kaptai en route to Rangamati and the Indian border areas. These renegades began looting their fellow Bengalis as they came through Kaptai. They also began to murder the surviving wives and children of previously killed Biharis. They demanded and took food, clothing and other supplies from the local residents. By April 10, everyone in Kaptai, including myself had become terrified of these deserters. Mr. Shamsuddin suggested, and I agreed, that he and several members of his staff, along with families, move into the houses around my residence.

After great pressure from implied threats, Shamsuddin had finally banded his three West Pakistani engineers over to a mob after he was told they would not be harmed, only held in jail at Rangamati. Shamsuddin agreed to hand over the engineers provided two Bengali members of his staff be allowed to accompany the engineers on their trip to the jail. This was agreed and they were taken away. Everyone felt certain these men would be killed but they were spared. When I last heard of them they were safe with their families in Dacca. Shamsuddin, although a Bengali, attempted on several occasions, at great risk to himself and his family, to stop the killings by the mobs but with little success. Also he saw to it that the existing generating units remained in operation throughout the trouble.

An Army unit arrived in Kaptai on the morning of April 14. Except for those in our area Kaptai and surroundings were completely deserted. The unit consisted of a tank, two jeeps, a half-track and about 250 infantry. As they approached the tank fired blanks from its cannon and the soldiers fired intermittent bursts from their weapons. The object seemed to be to cower the inhabitants with the noise. The army immediately began burning the shanties ('bustees') in which most of the people had lived. The bazaar and a few permanent type dwellings were also burned.

While his troops were searching the area, the commanding officer and his staff took tea in our residence. They congratulated and warmly praised Shamsuddin and his staff for their attempts to maintain order and for keeping the generating units in operation. The C.O. said that the Army's objective was to restore normality as quickly as possible. One of the officers told of a terrible scene they had come upon in a town about 10 miles from Kaptai called Chandagborna. About 40 to 50 women and children -survivors of previously killed Biharis - had been taken into a loft building where they had been hacked, stabbed and beaten to death. He said this grizzIy scene had driven the troops to an almost incontrollable rage and he said it was fortunate that Kaptai was deserted except for us.

[Mr. Shamsuddin was later taken from the house by two Pakistan soldiers.] We ran after them. They were taken behind the fire station which was about 250 yards away. Just as we arrived at the station we heard two shots. Shamsuddin and another man lay dead on the grass, each with a bullet through his chest.

The officer-in-charge appeared and questioned the soldier who had done the killing. We later found this man was a Major. After questioning by the O.I.C. the Major's weapon was taken and the Major was ordered immediately to Chittagong. The O.I.C. told us the whole thing was a tragic mistake. Later I was told what had happened. While directing the search of the area the Major and his driver came upon a woman with a small child who told that her husband and son had been killed by the Bengalis. She charged that Shamsuddin was the leader of the mobs and instigator of the atrocities. The women was taken to the fire station and the Major and his aide set off to find Shamsuddin. When Shamsuddin was brought before the woman she immediately identified him and the Major instantly carried out the executions. The man who died with Shamsuddin had also been accused by the woman, who was crazed by fear and grief.'

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

And of course this account from earlier:

The Telegraph - Calcutta : Look

The truth about the Jessore massacre​

The massacre may have been genocide, but it wasn’t committed by the Pakistan army. The dead men were non-Bengali residents of Jessore, butchered in broad daylight by Bengali nationalists, reports Sarmila Bose

BITTER TRUTH: Civilians massacred in Jessore in 1971 ? but by whom?

RECOGNITION DENIED: Father and son killed in Dhaka in 1971
The bodies lie strewn on the ground. All are adult men, in civilian clothes. A uniformed man with a rifle slung on his back is seen on the right. A smattering of onlookers stand around, a few appear to be working, perhaps to remove the bodies.

The caption of the photo is just as grim as its content: ‘April 2, 1971: Genocide by the Pakistan Occupation Force at Jessore.’ It is in a book printed by Bangladeshis trying to commemorate the victims of their liberation war.

It is a familiar scene. There are many grisly photographs of dead bodies from 1971, published in books, newspapers and websites.

Reading another book on the 1971 war, there was that photograph again ? taken from a slightly different angle, but the bodies and the scene of the massacre were the same. But wait a minute! The caption here reads: ‘The bodies of businessmen murdered by rebels in Jessore city.’

The alternative caption is in The East Pakistan Tragedy, by L.F. Rushbrook Williams, written in 1971 before the independence of Bangladesh. Rushbrook Williams is strongly in favour of the Pakistan government and highly critical of the Awami League. However, he was a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, had served in academia and government in India, and with the BBC and The Times. There was no reason to think he would willfully mislabel a photo of a massacre.

And so, in a bitter war where so many bodies had remained unclaimed, here is a set of murdered men whose bodies are claimed by both sides of the conflict! Who were these men? And who killed them?

It turns out that the massacre in Jessore may have been genocide, but it wasn’t committed by the Pakistan army. The dead men were non-Bengali residents of Jessore, butchered in broad daylight by Bengali nationalists.

It is but one incident, but illustrative of the emerging reality that the conflict in 1971 in East Pakistan was a lot messier than most have been led to believe. Pakistan’s military regime did try to crush the Bengali rebellion by force, and many Bengalis did die for the cause of Bangladesh’s independence. Yet, not every allegation hurled against the Pakistan army was true, while many crimes committed in the name of Bengali nationalism remain concealed.

Once one took a second look, some of the Jessore bodies are dressed in salwar kameez ? an indication that they were either West Pakistanis or ‘Biharis’, the non-Bengali East Pakistanis who had migrated from northern India.

As accounts from the involved parties ? Pakistan, Bangladesh and India ? tend to be highly partisan, it was best to search for foreign eye witnesses, if any. My search took me to newspaper archives from 35 years ago. The New York Times carried the photo on April 3, 1971, captioned: ‘East Pakistani civilians, said to have been slain by government soldiers, lie in Jessore square before burial.’ The Washington Post carried it too, right under its masthead: ‘The bodies of civilians who East Pakistani sources said were massacred by the Pakistani army lie in the streets of Jessore.’ “East Pakistani sources said”, and without further investigation, these august newspapers printed the photo.

In fact, if the Americans had read The Times of London of April 2 and Sunday Times of April 4 or talked to their British colleagues, they would have had a better idea of what was happening in Jessore. In a front-page lead article on April 2 entitled ‘Mass Slaughter of Punjabis in East Bengal,’ The Times war correspondent Nicholas Tomalin wrote an eye-witness account of how he and a team from the BBC programme Panorama saw Bengali troops and civilians march 11 Punjabi civilians to the market place in Jessore where they were then massacred. “Before we were forced to leave by threatening supporters of Shaikh Mujib,” wrote Tomalin, “we saw another 40 Punjabi “spies” being taken towards the killing ground?”

Tomalin followed up on April 4 in Sunday Times with a detailed description of the “mid-day murder” of Punjabis by Bengalis, along with two photos ? one of the Punjabi civilians with their hands bound at the Jessore headquarters of the East Pakistan Rifles (a Bengal formation which had mutinied and was fighting on the side of the rebels), and another of their dead bodies lying in the square. He wrote how the Bengali perpetrators tried to deceive them and threatened them, forcing them to leave. As other accounts also testify, the Bengali “irregulars” were the only ones in central Jessore that day, as the Pakistan government forces had retired to their cantonment.

Though the military action had started in Dhaka on March 25 night, most of East Pakistan was still out of the government’s control. Like many other places, “local followers of Sheikh Mujib were in control” in Jessore at that time. Many foreign media reported the killings and counter-killings unleashed by the bloody civil war, in which the army tried to crush the Bengali rebels and Bengali nationalists murdered non-Bengali civilians.

Tomalin records the local Bengalis’ claim that the government soldiers had been shooting earlier and he was shown other bodies of people allegedly killed by army firing. But the massacre of the Punjabi civilians by Bengalis was an event he witnessed himself. Tomalin was killed while covering the Yom Kippur war of 1973, but his eye-witness accounts solve the mystery of the bodies of Jessore.

There were, of course, genuine Bengali civilian victims of the Pakistan army during 1971. Chandhan Sur and his infant son were killed on March 26 along with a dozen other men in Shankharipara, a Hindu area in Dhaka. The surviving members of the Sur family and other residents of Shankharipara recounted to me the dreadful events of that day. Amar, the elder son of the dead man, gave me a photo of his father and brother’s bodies, which he said he had come upon at a Calcutta studio while a refugee in India. The photo shows a man’s body lying on his back, clad in a lungi, with the infant near his feet.

Amar Sur’s anguish about the death of his father and brother (he lost a sister in another shooting incident) at the hands of the Pakistan army is matched by his bitterness about their plight in independent Bangladesh. They may be the children of a ‘shaheed,’ but their home was declared ‘vested property’ by the Bangladesh government, he said, in spite of documents showing that it belonged to his father. Even the Awami League ? support for whom had cost this Hindu locality so many lives in 1971 ? did nothing to redress this when they formed the government.

In the book 1971: documents on crimes against humanity committed by Pakistan army and their agents in Bangladesh during 1971, published by the Liberation War Museum, Dhaka, I came across the same photo of the Sur father and son’s dead bodies. It is printed twice, one a close-up of the child only, with the caption: ‘Innocent women were raped and then killed along with their children by the barbarous Pakistan Army’. Foreigners might just have mistaken the ‘lungi’ worn by Sur for a ‘saree’, but surely Bangladeshis can tell a man in a ‘lungi’ when they see one! And why present the same ‘body’ twice?

The contradictory claims on the photos of the dead of 1971 reveal in part the difficulty of recording a messy war, but also illustrate vividly what happens when political motives corrupt the cause of justice and humanity. The political need to spin a neat story of Pakistani attackers and Bengali victims made the Bengali perpetrators of the massacre of Punjabi civilians in Jessore conceal their crime and blame the army. The New York Times and The Washington Post “bought” that story too. The media’s reputation is salvaged in this case by the even-handed eye-witness reports of Tomalin in The Times and Sunday Times.

As for the hapless Chandhan Sur and his infant son, the political temptation to smear the enemy to the maximum by accusing him of raping and killing women led to Bangladeshi nationalists denying their own martyrs their rightful recognition. In both cases, the true victims ?Punjabis and Bengalis, Hindus and Muslims ? were cast aside, their suffering hijacked, by political motivations of others that victimised them a second time around.

 

[Kharian_Beast]

Whether or not there were massacres or atrocities perpetrated by the East Pakistani forces is not something that will answer Pakistan centric issues. Frankly there isn't much development in this topic by our government because it does not want to apologize for fighting India. Understandably so. Let's talk about the issues for Pakistan (West at the time).

The reality of the 1971 scenario is that East Pakistan was lost, period. Since 1947 India and Bengali locals had ample time, 24 years to snap East Pakistan if it was indeed a cakewalk. But it wasn't because a large force was present and well entrenched (West Pakistan). One can easily point fingers and raise questions of professionalism in such cases, I in my own beliefs hold firm that the 150,000+ were unprofessional during the course of the entire episode up till the surrender and consequent abandonment of POW's.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

For those interested in reading Sarmila Bose's analysis of the conflict, in which she argues that Bangladeshi and Indian claims are grossly exaggerated, here is a link to the PDF file: http://www.statelesspeopleinbangladesh.net/uploaded_files/studies_and_reports/AnatomyOfViolence.pdf

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Whether or not there were massacres or atrocities perpetrated by the East Pakistani forces is not the issue...the reality of the scenario is that East Pakistan was lost. One can easily point fingers and raise questions of professionalism in such cases, I in my own beliefs hold firm that the 150,000+ were unprofessional during the course of the entire episode up till the surrender and consequent abandonment of POW's.

Well actually on this thread, given the title, the 'issue' are the atrocities.

And highlighting the atrocities perpetrated by the Bengalis on non-Bengalis, before the Army crackdown on the 25th of March, is essential since it gives context to what followed and why.

It is also essential to point out that there are widely differing estimates on how many people were in fact killed in the violence in East Pakistan. The consensus from the conference held by the State Department appears to be that the total deaths were around 300,000. Half or a little less than half would appear to be non-Bengalis killed by mobs and separatists.

I would prefer to close the thread at this point since the only direction I see it going in now is both sides just copy posting articles and videos of the atrocities 'their side' suffered.

I think it has been clearly established that atrocities were committed by both sides, and their is clearly a lot for both sides to regret. I think we shall leave it at that.

This latest thread in fact started out separate from the the 'atrocities in 1971' thread, and was more specifically focused on the question of whether or not the Pakistan Army had the insurgency under control in East Pakistan, had Indian intervention not occurred.

Some people however had to troll and inject the usual 'genocide' and what not flames and the thread ended up being merged with the thread on atrocities.

I believe this thread has served its purpose, as has discussion on this issue on this forum. Atrocities by both sides have been highlighted, and claims made and in some cases debunked.

Hopefully next time discussion of events in 1971 will remain focused on the subject of the thread.

 

[blain2]

For those interested in reading Sarmila Bose's analysis of the conflict, in which she argues that Bangladeshi and Indian claims are grossly exaggerated, here is a link to the PDF file: http://www.statelesspeopleinbangladesh.net/uploaded_files/studies_and_reports/AnatomyOfViolence.pdf

Thank you for posting.

 

[angeldemon_007]

NEW DELHI – It is exactly 40 years since the Pakistani military regime of Yahya Khan initiated “Operation Searchlight” in March 1971. That military expedition was but the latest in a series of pogroms carried out to intimidate the restive population of what was then called East Pakistan – today’s independent Bangladesh. What followed was one of the worst massacres in human history, now all but forgotten by the international community.

Pakistan was created by the partition of British India in 1947, but its territory was divided into two enclaves separated by hundreds of miles. While they shared a religion, Islam, there were major cultural and linguistic differences between East and West Pakistan.

In the east, there was a strong sense of being Bengali, and a sizeable Hindu minority continued to live in the province. There was, moreover, strong resentment that political power lay in the hands of western-based politicians and generals who were blatantly insensitive to Bengali demands. It seemed to many that, with the creation of Pakistan, East Pakistan had merely exchanged one form of colonialism for another. And, as Bengali demands for autonomy gained momentum, the response became more repressive.

In November 1970, tropical cyclone “Bhola” struck East Pakistan, killing between 300,000 and 500,000 people. Bhola is still considered one of the worst natural disasters on record, and the military dictatorship’s lukewarm relief efforts incensed the Bengali population.

So, when Pakistan’s military leaders finally allowed elections in late December 1970, East Pakistan voted overwhelmingly for the Bengali-nationalist Awami League, which won 167 of 169 seats in the province. Since East Pakistan was more populous than West Pakistan, the election’s outcome raised the prospect that the Bengalis would now rule the country as whole. This was not palatable to the Punjabi-dominated military brass or to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the leader of West Pakistan’s largest political party. The elections were “canceled,” and East Pakistan erupted in open revolt.

Yahya Khan responded by sending in the troops. The result was a genocide in which as many as three million people, particularly minorities and intellectuals, were killed. Dhaka University’s residential halls were particularly targeted. Up to 700 students were killed in a single attack on Jagannath Hall. Several well-known professors, both Hindu and Muslim, were murdered. Hundreds of thousands of women were systematically raped in the countryside. By September 1971, ten million refugees had poured into eastern India.

The world knew what was happening. Time magazine’s August 2, 1971, issue quoted a United States official saying, “This is the most incredible, calculated thing since the days of the Nazis in Poland.” The article goes on to describe the streams of refugees:

“Over the rivers and down the highways and along countless jungle paths, the population of East Pakistan continues to hemorrhage into India: an endless unorganized flow of refugees with a few tin kettles, cardboard boxes, and ragged clothes piled on their heads, carrying their sick children and their old. They pad along barefooted, with the mud sucking at their heels in the wet parts. They are silent, except for a child whimpering now and then, but their faces tell the story. Many are sick and covered with sores. Others have cholera, and when they die by the roadside there is no one to bury them.”

The international community’s response to the massacres was shameful. We now have copies of desperate cables sent by diplomat Archer Blood and his colleagues at the US consulate in Dacca (now Dhaka) pleading with the US government to stop supporting a military regime that was carrying out genocide. Instead, President Richard Nixon concentrated on intimidating Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi into staying out. He would even send the US Seventh Fleet to cow her. Fortunately, Gandhi held her nerve and began to prepare for war.

Strengthened by promises of support from the US and China, Pakistan’s military commanders ordered pre-emptive air strikes against India on December 3, 1971. The Indian response was swift and sharp. With support from the civilian population, as well as from the Mukti Bahini, an irregular army of Bengali rebels, the Indian army swept into East Pakistan. Nixon was too bogged down in Vietnam to do more than issue threats. On December 16, the Pakistanis signed the instrument of surrender in Dacca. Bangladesh was born.

Having acquiesced in the genocide, the international community has conveniently forgotten it, and no Pakistani official has ever been brought to justice. On the contrary, many of the perpetrators later held senior government positions. It is as if the Nuremberg trials never happened after WWII.

As the world watches Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi slaughter his own people, we should remember the human cost of international indifference.

The Forgotten Genocide by Sanjeev Sanyal - Project Syndicate

 

[lonelyone]

You would think that 40 years after '71 everything there is to be known is known, and that there is no more to uncover. The following picture must be very familiar to all Bangladeshis. It shows a Pakistani soldier checking in the lungi of a man to see whether he is Hindu or Muslim, and if he is Hindu, he will probably be taken away to be killed.

Its a very common image, and is burned into the minds of Bangladeshis as an example of typical Pakistani/Islamic brutality, intolerance and backwardness.

However, the fact is that the picture ISN'T of a Pakistani soldier at all, but an Indian soldier "checking for weapons". The picture is from a book by an Indian photographer called Kishor Parekh, called "Bangladesh- A Brutal Birth"

Kishor Parekh

Now here is the original, undedited photo.

Caption in the book -- "Indian Troops Grimly round up villagers suspected to be Pakistani spies they peer into Lungi in search of weapons."

And, here is another photo of the same scene.

Caption - "...Indian troops grimly round up villagers suspected to be Pakistani spies...The Jawans (soldiers) I was travelling with weren't too gentle: they had suffered casualties..."- Kishor Parekh, Bangladesh War 1971.



Sources: 1. WPPh --> ENTER (World Press Photo)
2. WPPh --> ENTER (World Press Photo)