The genocide in Bangladesh began on 26 March 1971 with the launch of Operation Searchlight with West Pakistan starting a military crackdown in East Pakistan, presently Bangladesh, to suppress Bengali calls for self-determination. During the nine-month long Bangladesh war for independence, members of the Pakistani military and supporting militias killed between 300,000 – 3,000,000 people (figures can never be confirmed) and raped between 200,000 – 400,000 Bangladeshi women in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape.
Participants – Over and above the Pakistani army, according to political scientist Peter Tomsen Pakistan’s secret service ISI, in conjunction with the political party Jamaat-e-Islami, formed militias such as Al-Badr (“the moon”) and the Al-Shams (“the sun”) to conduct operations against the nationalist movement. These militias targeted noncombatants and committed rapes as well as other crimes. Local collaborators known as Razakars also took part in the atrocities.
Killing of intellectuals – During the war, the Pakistan Army and its local collaborators undertook a systematic execution of the leading Bengali intellectuals. A number of professors from Dhaka University were killed during the first few days of the war. Professors, journalists, doctors, artists, engineers and writers were rounded up by Pakistan Army and the Razakar militia in Dhaka, blindfolded, taken to torture cells in Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Nakhalpara, Rajarbagh etc to be executed en masse, most notably at Rayerbazar and Mirpur. The Pakistani Army and its collaborators made a list of doctors, teachers, poets, and scholars. According to one analysis during the nine-month duration of the war, the Pakistani army, with its collaborators systematically executed an estimated 991 teachers, 13 journalists, 49 physicians, 42 lawyers, and 16 writers, artists and engineers.
Genocidal rape by Pakistan Army – Numerous women were tortured, raped and killed during the war. Exact numbers are not known and are a subject of debate. Bangladeshi sources cite a figure of 200,000 women raped, giving birth to thousands of war – babies. The Pakistani Army also kept numerous Bengali women as sex-slaves inside the Dhaka Cantonment. Most of the girls were captured from Dhaka University and private homes.
In a New York Times report named ‘Horrors of East Pakistan Turning Hope into Despair’, Malcom W. Browne wrote : ‘One tale that is widely believed and seems to come from many different sources is that 563 women picked up by the army in March and April and held in military brothels are not being released because they are pregnant beyond the point at which abortions are possible.’
Attacks on minorities – The minorities of Bangladesh were specific targets of the Pakistani army. There was widespread killing of Hindu males, and rapes of women. Documented incidents in which Hindus were massacred in large numbers include the Chuknagar massacre, the Jathibhanga massacre, and the Shankharipara massacre.
According to R.J. Rummel, professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii – The genocide and gendercidal atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers. These “willing executioners” were fueled by an abiding anti -Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority. “Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. Said General Niazi, ‘It was a low lying land of low lying people.’ The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to theNazis: 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 Pakistani captain as telling him, “We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one.” This is the arrogance of Power.