Bangladesh to seek repatriation of 195 Pak military men for trial

Law Minister Anisul Huq on Wednesday said Bangladesh will sought repatriation of 195 Pakistani military personnel for holding trial for their war crimes in 1971.

“Those 195 men were sent back to Pakistan as it vouched to bring them to justice in the trilateral agreement signed with Bangladesh and India. But they did not face any trial. So Bangladesh wants to bring them to justice,” Huq said.

“I know many of them are no longer alive. But we want the alive ones back and will continue our efforts in this regard,” he added.

The minister came up with the observations while addressing the closing session of an international seminar at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) auditorium in city’s Elephant Road area.

BIISS organized the seminar to commemorate the Genocide Day (March 25).

The minister at the function urged the civil society and academia to devote more in historical evidences to counter the ‘ill-motivated’ narratives of the ‘detractors’ on genocide in 1971.

“It is interesting to note that, the ‘critics’ of ICT BD, whom I would rather call ‘detractors’, have never denied the fact that Bangladesh indeed experienced ‘genocide’ during the 1971 Liberation War. Their criticism was confined to the trial process,” he said.

Chaired by Ambassador Munshi Faiz Ahmad, the concluding session was attended by BIISS Director General Major General A K M Abdur Rahman, veteran journalist and researcher Shahriar Kabir and Prof Syed Anwar Hossain, among others.

Professor Payam Akhavan, member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, addressed the concluding session through Skype.

“Although late, today I feel relieved that we have finally been able to give formal recognition to the victims of genocide and mass atrocity crimes committed during the nine-month long liberation war of Bangladesh, by declaring 25 March as Genocide Day,” the law minister said.

The genocide committed in 1971 in Bangladesh has been regarded as one of the major genocides since the Holocaust in terms of its brutality, atrocity and heinousness,” he added.

Anisul Huq said, “The key perpetrators of these unprecedented heinous crimes enjoyed decades of impunity remaining unaccountable until now while the victims and their families never received justice or reparations.”

“The patrons of those criminals were not only provided impunity, they have unfortunately made well-calibrated efforts to erase such accounts from the history of our liberation war,” Huq added.

Referring to the famous “Blood Telegram”, report of noted journalist Anthony Mascarenhas and a book of Prof Gary J Bass, the law minister said such literary disclosures along with the legal basis provided by International Crimes Tribunal put Bangladesh in a stronger footing in getting international recognition for Bangladesh genocide.

Source: BSS