Pakistan can never be considered 'brotherly' country by Bangladeshis, reckons noted expert

Dhaka, Aug 26 (IANS) Pakistan’s leadership, including its army-dominated elected civilian government, should revisit the seminal work, ‘We Owe An Apology To Bangladesh’, in which notable Pakistanis have expressed their outrage over the heinous crimes committed by Pakistani army in 1971 and provided a clear and concrete account of the suffering Bangladesh endured under the regime of former Pakistani President Yahya Khan and military officer Tikka Khan, a report cited on Tuesday.

The Pakistani army had killed three million Bangladeshi Bengalis, sexually assaulted between 200,000 and 400,000 women, forced 10 million Bangladeshis to take refuge in India, and set ablaze Bengali villages and towns. General A.A.K. Niazi openly spoke of creating a "new race" of people through the rape of Bangladeshi women by the troops under his command, noted Bangladeshi journalist, historian and political analyst Syed Badrul Ahsan wrote in an opinion piece that was published on the Awami League website and also circulated on party's social media handles.

"It is a work Shehbaz Sharif and his ministers, as also Field Marshal Asim Munir, need to read to remind themselves of the terror their compatriots caused in Bangladesh and the reason why Pakistan cannot by any stretch of the meaning be considered a ‘brotherly’ country by Bengalis," he wrote.

Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, during his visit to Dhaka over the weekend, asserted that three unresolved matters between Islamabad and Dhaka, including the long-standing demand for an apology over the 1971 genocide, have been resolved twice in the past.

When questioned about discussions on the unresolved issues during the ministerial-level meeting on Sunday, Dar responded, "The issue was settled for the first time in 1974. And the document of that time is historic for both countries. Then General Pervez Musharraf came here (to Bangladesh) and resolved the issue openly. As a result, the issue was resolved twice. Once in 1974, and again in the early 2000s."

Over three million people were killed, and more than 300,000 women were raped by the Pakistani Army during the 1971 genocide. Since the carnage, the people of Bangladesh have consistently demanded that Pakistan apologise for its barbarity.

"Did Zulfikar Ali Bhutto apologise on behalf of his country when he visited Bangladesh in June 1974? He merely said ‘tauba’, as if that was enough to wash away the sins committed by his country, indeed by himself, in 1971. Did Pervez Musharraf offer any apology? He expressed regret for the tragic happenings of 1971. That was not an expression of apology,” wrote Ahsan who has written the biography of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh.

He asserted that recently anti-national elements in Bangladesh, encouraged by the parties whose “goon squads” aided the Pakistan occupation army in 1971 in the killing of Bangladeshi Bengalis, have been emboldened by the comments of “short-sighted” Pakistanis calling for a ‘reunification’ of the old country.

Ahsan asserted that, with a lack of historical understanding, these forces deliberately disregard the factors that led the “Mukti Bahini” and people of Bangladesh to defeat the Pakistani occupation in December 1971.

“And, yes, Pakistan’s army-run government must not imagine that Bangladesh’s people, despite the darkness they have been passing through since the constitutional government led by the Awami League was brought low by local and foreign-engineered conspiracy last year, have forgotten and forgiven Pakistan for the genocide in 1971. Ishaq Dar has come and gone. What will not go away for Pakistan is the guilt which has remained associated with its history since its collapse in Bangladesh,” he noted.

--IANS

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