16 December – Bijoe Dibosh; the victory day for Bangladesh while Pakistanis remember this day as ‘the tragic fall of Dhaka’ happened. This was the day when nine-month long Bangladesh Liberation War (‘Muktijuddho’ in Bengali) ended in 1971 with the surrender of Pakistan army. All this war period is marred with senseless bloodshed, atrocities and hatred.
Bangladesh claims that around three million people were massacred by the Pak army; however, they have failed to find any mass graves during last forty years. Same time Urdu-speaking ethnic groups and West Pakistanis living in then East Pakistan were subjected to immense reprisal attacks, torture and devastation of properties.
There are so many unanswered questions and open issues pushed under the carpet, assuming these will never ever wake our conscious. Pakistan never accepted that it was the economical and political discrimination which sowed the seeds of secession among Bengalis. Refusal of a military dictator to honour Shaikh Mujib’s Awami League’s landslide victory in general elections of 1970 was just to close the fate of a united Pakistan.
Pakistan never accepted that it was the defeat of the theory that just a common faith can glue a country of diverse languages and cultures.
Pakistan never offered an official apology for the countless massacres carried out by its forces whether it was March 25 Operation Searchlight in Dhaka University slaughtering scores of students and faculty members or another infamous massacre of Bengali intelligentsia a couple of days before the surrender.
Pakistan also refused to accept a large number of East Pakistan based Urdu-speaking people who opted to remain as Pakistanis. Bangladesh never brought to justice its Mukti Bahini liberation force members who indulged in gross scale atrocities against non- Bengali population.
Sense of denial prevails in both countries which is not the solution. The real and primary perpetrators and instigators of these unfortunate events should be brought to justice. But maybe it’s too late as only historians can now try them in their analysis of the events of those dark days. Till that time it’s time to sleep over or indulge in another denial of rights to our own people.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arab