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Pakistan is trying to discredit the US-based Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (LIGP) statement that reiterated the horrors of the genocide of 1971.
The Pakistan Army had killed three million Bengalis and raped about 400,000 Bengali women and girls during the 1971 genocide. This is the second biggest genocide after the Holocaust that needs to be recognized as such by the global community. Lemkin Institute on December 1, 2021, issued a statement on the 50th anniversary of the Bangladesh Liberation War calling upon the international community, including the United Nations, to urgently recognize the Bengali genocide as a way to pay tribute to the victims and to hold perpetrators accountable. The LIGP's statement underscored the then West Pakistan's (now Pakistan) discriminatory policies towards then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). It said that the policies were aimed at destroying East Pakistan's (now Bangladesh) cultural and national identity and imposing on them a singular West Pakistan identity. There was a prohibition against speaking Bangla, Urdu was imposed as an official language, followed by violent persecution and repression of a linguistic and cultural opposition that had started right after the partition. According to the statement, in order to muzzle the dissent, Pakistan launched "Operation Searchlight" to implement genocidal policies in extreme and mass physical violence. In the face of defeat, it proceeded to kill thousands of Bengali intellectuals. Among those intellectuals who were killed were journalists, philosophers, poets, musicians, writers, professors, filmmakers, lawyers, doctors and many other individuals who represented the different aspects of the Bengali identity. Underlining the atrocities committed by the Pakistani Army and the local collaborators, the statement further condemned the horrific policy of sexual violence against Bengalis, mostly Bengali Hindu women and girls, involving vicious gang rapes, life force atrocities, sexual slavery, sexual torture, and forced maternity. The LIGP's statement also applauded the efforts undertaken by the Bangladesh government to bring justice to the victims and accountability for perpetrators by establishing the International Crime Tribunals of Bangladesh in order to try the Bengali nationals who collaborated with the Pakistan government to perpetrate heinous crimes. The Lemkin Institute called upon the international community to provide help and support to Bangladesh in its justice efforts, as well as to persuade Pakistan to work with Bangladesh in its search for truth and justice. In light of the Lemkin Institute's statement, Islamabad is allegedly trying to discredit the claims made in the statement and persuade LIGP to withdraw its indictment. (ANI)
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