Exposing Pakistan’s Disturbing Past: Atrocities Too Evil To Comprehend

When Britain let go of its Empire in South Asia in 1947 it left behind two massive States India and Pakistan their borders were drawn along religious lines but is geography really so simple as a line on a map South Asia’s Muslim majority areas laid to the northwest of the subcontinent and in the Northeast the Nations we know today is Pakistan and Bangladesh respectively the British thought that such a division between India and Pakistan would minimize religious conflict instead it drew the battle lines for divisions that would

spill over into war and attempted genocide today on a day in history we look at the genocide inflicted upon Bangladesh during its Liberation war in the suffering that surrounded the birth of a new nation whose only crime was winning an election before we begin don’t forget to like this video And subscribe to our channel for more videos like this one the Dominion of Pakistan came into existence in 1947 covering the modern area of Pakistan in the west and Bangladesh in the East their shared Muslim faith was not enough to bridge

the many linguistic ethnic and cultural gaps between the two sides of the country west Pakistan and its urdu-speaking Elites dominated the entire State although the ethnically Bengali East were the majority of the population the Bengali majority was discriminated against in education the military politics and other aspects of life this discrimination fell especially hard on the Hindu minority but the Muslim majority was also characterized as a lesser cultural interracial group to the Western Pakistani the Pakistani

government also tried to suppress Bengali culture arts and literature as two Hindu leaning on top of this economic exploitation of the East Resources with minimal return investment also create created resentment and left the East feeling more like a colony than an equal partner despite this the bengalis were reputed for their non-violence their discontent was funneled through Democratic means namely the awami league AO under the leadership of Sheikh mujibor Rahman also known as Sheikh mujib the AL pushed for more

autonomy for East Pakistan but try as they might the bengalis did not get the Democratic resolution they’d hoped for 1970 was the breaking point severe flooding in August and a devastating cyclone in November killed thousands in the East but the government response was weak and incompetent Decades of discrimination only made the government response sting more in support for Bengali autonomy even outright Independence surged things changed when Pakistan’s military dictator General Yaya Khan allowed Pakistan’s first ever

Democratic elections to take place in December of that year Sheikh mujib and the awami league eagerly seized the opportunity to campaign and force the Pakistani government to concede to their demands for more autonomy the Pakistani authorities had miscalculated they believed the AL was a vocal minority Al might win 60 or 70 seats in the East but nowhere near enough to be a serious problem they were wrong when the results came in 167 of East Pakistan’s 169 seats went to the AO they weren’t just the largest party in the East but the single largest

party in Pakistan as a whole Yaya Khan’s government refused to concede they’d favored the Pakistan People’s Party of zulfikar alibuto Bhutto refused to recognize his rival’s victory and famously threatened to break the legs of any official who accepted mujib’s Victory Yaya Khan Bhutto and mujib met in early 1971 to negotiate through the crisis but got nowhere and it was clear that the Pakistani authorities would not allow the AL to take up their Democratic man dates in March 1971 Yaya Khan blocked the ale from forming their new

government in response Sheikh mujeeb and the AL called for a general strike across all of East Pakistan Farmers railroad workers soldiers government officials police teachers and more walked out grinding the entire region to Halt one final attempt to negotiate failed and Pakistan decided that the only solution to the crisis was false throughout March Yaya Khan had been secretly transferring thousands of soldiers into East Pakistan in preparation for a military solution to the crisis Yaya delegated this task to

General Tika Khan who’d already earned the nickname of the Butcher of Balochistan for his brutal suppression of unrest in that region Yaya Khan believed that overwhelming military force would crush the Bengali nationalists and force the rest into submission kill 3 million he said and the rest will eat out of our hands on the night of March 25th Yaya launched operation Searchlight it was a massive coordinated strike on almost every major city in East Pakistan Pakistani troops targeted Al Party leaders civil officials police intellectuals academics

and anyone else who could act as a leadership class to the independence movement were hunted down the most well-known attack on that night occurred at Dhaka University the Pakistani authorities wanted to eliminate the academics and students of Bangladesh’s best university to deprive the people of some of its greatest potential leaders Pakistani troops entered the campus and went room to room dormitory by dormitory rounded up teachers and students marched them into the open and executed them at least 10 teachers and a hundred students

were massacred in a single night some of the students were forced to dig Graves for the massacre victims before being executed them elves this was the first stage of the genocide by decapitating the Bengali leadership Pakistan hoped to leave the rest of the bengalis as weak and easy prey the next day Sheikh mujib issued a telegram to the public announcing that they would meet the Pakistani attacks with equal force East Pakistan was no more and the nation of Bangladesh was now fighting for its freedom he wrote Today Bangladesh is a

sovereign and independent country the bengalis are fighting the enemy with great courage for an independent Bangladesh may Allah Aid us in our fight for Freedom Joy Bangla May Bangladesh be victorious Sheikh mujib was arrested shortly after and spent the rest of 1971 in prison in his absence the bengalis heeded his court fights five battalions of the East Bengal Regiment mutinied and civilians armed themselves for guerrilla warfare against their aggressors this Collective resistance became known as the mukti

bahini Bangladesh’s limited military forces put up a spirited resistance to the Pakistani military but they were outnumbered and outgunned the Pakistani attacks were brutal by March 28th some estimates say up to 15 000 bengalis had been killed and another 15 000 were dead by early April without a centralized leadership the early Bengali resistance was amateurish and uncoordinated by the middle of May Pakistan controlled most major towns and cities while the bengalis and their government in Exile had been driven mostly into the

countryside from May 1971 the war took on a more gorilla character as Bengali forces tried to reorganize and retake the cities between May and September up to 100 000 young men were trained as Guerrilla Fighters the Indian government also began extending limited support to counter their old rival of Pakistan the pakistanis tightened their hold on the urban areas continuing Mass arrests and executions for alleged Rebels and launching strategic assaults on villages to Route Bengali forces increasingly the pakistanis feared that any fighting age

men were potential Rebels when they entered a village the young men were rounded up and massacred this left men with a choice wait and hope the pakistanis would spare you or flee if they were to be treated like Rebels many young men decided to become them and thousands joined the gorillas as their only hope of survival some in Bangladesh joined the Pakistan II many of these collaborators belong to specific ethnic groups such as the baharis which led to Sharp ethnic divisions that would last well beyond the war

typical Massacre occurred at the Village of baronga on May 26 1971 Pakistani and Allied Forces entered the village in the silhat district where they gathered all of The Village’s men outside the school they then separated out the Hindus from the Muslims after extorting valuables from both groups many of the Muslims were released but the Hindus were tied up and executed in the schoolyard at least 78 men were gunned down one Survivor vividly recalled the massacre bullets from machine guns were fired at the helpless people with their hands

tied at the back there was blood everywhere but it did not end there to ensure everyone was dead they set them on fire the mass extermination of young men is a common feature of genocides by removing the fighting population they were simultaneously wiping out the reproducing population and ensuring that there was no one to protect the older men women and children who were left behind the scale of male-focused genocide has led some Scholars to characterize this as a gender site however that did not mean women didn’t

Suffer Without men to protect their communities women were exposed to violence from the rampaging soldiers rape was a systemic and organized part of Pakistan’s military operations women and girls were assaulted on mass sometimes in front of their families in every village that the military entered part of it was simple inhuman cruelty but it was also psychological the attacks were psychologically damaging to the women and to any Witnesses especially since Bengali culture Christ honor in female Chastity although we can

never know for certain it’s thought that at least two hundred thousand women and girls from pensioners to little children were subjected to Sexual Violence by Pakistani forces in 1971. the ongoing violence shocked the world and created a staggering Refugee crisis most of them flowed into India India was quick to throw its support behind Bangladesh an independent Bangladesh would be a significant blow to the strength of India’s old enemy and would end Indian fears of fighting a two-front war against Pakistan on a more practical

level 10 million Bengali refugees most of them Hindu poured into India in 1971. it was an unsustainable amount and India was desperate to resolve the crisis before the problem got worse India began courting international support for Bangladesh in campaigning for countries to withdraw support from Pakistan the Soviet Union was quick to join India in condemning the violence and signaling its support for Bangladesh by contrast China and the Islamic world were firmly behind Pakistan the Western world was somewhat divided officially the US and

Pakistan were tentative allies and the Nixon Administration was working hard to cultivate good relations with China however popular opinion in the West Was firmly pro-bangladesh especially his videos and news reports of Pakistani violence filled Western newspapers and TV broadcasts the Indian government was caught in a geopolitical bind they were concerned that a military intervention would antagonize China or the US and potentially cause a Cascade that could lead to a major International war prime minister Indira Gandhi conducted a

whirlwind diplomatic tour to Moscow Washington DC London and elsewhere to erode support for Pakistan and clear the way for Indian involvement she managed to persuade the Nixon Administration to end military aid for Pakistan in October 1971. at the same time that Pakistani delegation to Beijing was politely but firmly told that China would not intervene to help Pakistan if India involved itself in Bangladesh Pakistan interpreted India’s actions as a sign of aggression they launched a preemptive strike on Indian air bases on

December 3rd but the attacks failed to inflict any significant damage India took this as an act of war and responded with strategic strikes on Pakistan’s air and Naval bases the next day which the stated Pakistan’s military capabilities within days Indian troops moved across the border and linked up with the Bangladeshi Freedom Fighters for a combined campaign to kick the pakistanis out of Bangladesh their Combined Assault was a tremendous success in less than two weeks most of Pakistan’s Air Force was out of commission the Indian Navy

had effectively cut off Naval access between Pakistan and Bangladesh and hundreds of towns and cities were retaken by the combined Bangladeshi Indian forces on December 8th the Bangladeshi and Indian forces were on the outskirts of Dhaka and by December 16th they had retaken the capital Victory came at a cost when it was clear they were going to lose the bitter Pakistani forces took their anger out on civilians a spike of massacres occurred in the final days of the war as Pakistan tried to this soon to be independent country on the 12th 13th and

14th of December hundreds of intellectuals and professionals from all sorts of occupations were killed by retreating forces it was one final attempt to deprive the new nation of any potential Leaders The Liberation forces also found evidence of the Horus Pakistan had inflicted on civilians as they recaptured enemy positions it was common to find captured women held in captivity in Pakistani military camps where they’d been abused for months by the occupying forces or to find mass Graves of those the retreating forces

hadn’t had time to bury finally on December 17 1971 with Pakistan’s militarian tatters and Bangladeshi forces back in control of their cities the two sides declared a ceasefire Pakistani forces in Bangladesh lay down their arms in the war and its genocide were over Bangladesh was the first nation state to earn its independence by waging a successful war of Liberation against a post-colonial state Additionally the intervention of the Indian military was one of the only examples of a genocide being ended thanks to external

intervention most academics accepted what happened in Bangladesh was a genocide the mass targeting of ethnic leaders the extermination of the Bengali male population and the specific targeting of Hindu minorities within Bangladesh all meet the conditions for genocide the death toll from the war an accompanying genocide has divided historians a wide range between 300 000 and 500 000 is the usual estimate but Bangladesh officially counts three million dead in 1971.

 40 million people were displaced in millions more suffered injuries or sexual abuse the long-term effects of the genocide are still being felt many rape victims were cast out of their families out of a belief that rapes sullied the honor of the family leaving an epidemic of women abandoned after 1971.

 the disproportionate death of men also had severe social and economic consequences as essential jobs went undone and women were forced into the workforce to make up the shortfall the normalization of violence and social trauma of the genocide also led to a sharp rise in violent crime that continues to this day Additionally the collaboration by some ethnic minorities with the Pakistani forces led to reprisal violence in the 1970s as many as a hundred and fifty thousand people were killed by ethnically targeted mob violence in post-war Bangladesh for belonging to

ethnicities who were all painted as collaborators official efforts to prosecute collaborators led to tens of thousands of detentions although far fewer trials and even fewer convictions as you might expect accountability for Pakistan was non-existent despite the vast amount of video documentary and eyewitness evidence Pakistan still denies wrongdoing it blames the Rogue action of soldiers for the undeniable episodes of violence while official Pakistani estimates vastly downplay the actual number of casualties not a single

Pakistani faced any punishment for the murder rape or other abuse inflicted upon millions of people the rest of the world’s sympathy faded once the massacres left the headlines today the Bangladesh genocide is just one of numerous forgotten atrocities of the 20th century depending on the death tolls you believe the fact that all of this occurred in just nine months between March and December 1971 makes this one of the most intense genocides in the 20th century but as we’ve seen many times on this channel the scale and severity of crimes

do nothing to guarantee their perpetrators will be punished or that their victims will be remembered we hope that this video at least raised your awareness of what really happened during those fateful nine months in Bangladesh if you enjoyed this video don’t forget to leave a like And subscribe to this channel for more videos like this one