Dhaka: Protest For Recognition Of Genocide By Pak

Scores of people protested in front of National Museum, Shahbag in Dhaka to mark the genocide by the Pakistan Army in Bangladesh in 1971 in which thousands of people, including children, were slaughtered.

The protest organised by Bangladesh Conscious Citizens Committee (BCCC), commemorating Genocide Remembrance Day, saw participation by prominient people including Muktijoddha Professor Dr Neemchand Bhowmik.

Leaders and participants of the human chain protest demanded international recognition of this genocide or Operation Searchlight – a planned military pacification carried out by the Pakistani Army. They also demanded an apology by the Pakistan Government and a trial of Pakistani War Criminals immediately.

The protest was addressed among others by political analyst FF Major General M A Sikder, Co-Convenor F F M D Salauddin, Member Secretary and Chairman of Bangladesh Bharat Sampriti Parishad FF Fazle Ali, Journalist Basudeb Dhar, Secretary-General of Bangladesh Bharat Sampriti Parshad FF Mehidi Hasan Chowdhury and HBCUP leader Nirmal Chatterjee, Professor Sadia Sharmin.

The leaders condemned the massacre of Bangladesh people by the Pakistan Army on March 25 in 1971 when a black veil just showed up over the history of mankind.

The Pakistan Army turned entire Bangladesh into a killing field with its indiscriminate killing, torture of innocent people and unprecedented scale of rapes for nine months.

That was the kickoff of one of the biggest genocides in the world, led by General Yahya Khan of Pakistan, causing the biggest ever humanitarian catastrophe after World War II. They killed 30 lakh people and violated two lakh women and children. Freedom fighters and researchers claim that still, many mass graves in the district and upazila levels remain unidentified. (ANI)