Pakistan's Genocide
by Uzay Bulut • June 30, 2023 at 5:00 am
"The conflict resulted in the massacre of an estimated three million East Pakistani citizens, the ethnic cleansing of 10 million ethnic Bengalis who fled to India, and the rape of at least 200,000 women (some estimates put the number of rape victims at closer to 400,000)." — hinduamerican.org
"Hindus were the special targets of this violence, as documented by official government correspondence and documents from the United States, Pakistan, and India.... The Pakistan military's conflation of Hindu, Bengali, and Indian identities meant that all Bengalis (the majority of people in Bangladesh) were suspect.... In the eyes of the Pakistani military, Hindu, Bengali, and Indian identities were one and the same." — hinduamerican.org
"Bengali Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, and other religious groups were also significantly affected. By the end of the first month in March 1971, 1.5 million Bengalis were displaced. By November 1971, 10 million Bengalis, the majority of whom were Hindu, had fled to India." — hinduamerican.org
"II]in the eyes of Western Pakistanis and their fundamentalist Muslim collaborators 'the Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that should best be exterminated.'" — Rudolph Joseph Rummel (1932–2014), leading American scholar of genocides, quoted by sociologist Massimo Introvigne, bitterwinter.org, November 2, 2021.
The genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Pakistani military against millions of people due to their ethnicity, religion, language and political views urgently need to be called out and the perpetrators held accountable.
The genocide committed by Pakistan needs immediate recognition.
"According to Bangladesh Government estimates 3 million people were killed, over two-hundred thousand women were sexually and physically violated, and 10 million people were forced to cross the border into India, leaving behind their ancestral homes and worldly possessions just to save their lives and dignity of their women," wrote Stichting BASUG (Bangladesh Support Group), a non-governmental organization, together with other Bangladeshi diaspora organizations to the United Nations Secretary General on May 29.
"Over 20 million citizens were internally displaced in search of safety. Newspapers, magazines and publications which are available in libraries and archives all around the world bear testimony to the fact."
