Assignment on
Genocide in 1971 in Bangladesh
Submitted to
Rafea Khatun
Department of Law
Faculty of Humanities & Social Science
Daffodil International University
Submitted by
Rakibul Hassan Bicky
Department of Law
Program: LLM
Id: 221-38-026
Date of Submission: 12/November/2022
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Genocide means deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular
nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. Genocide
is an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent
to destroy, in whole or in part of a national ethnic group or religious group.
1
According to the section 2 of Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed
with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, as such:
a) Killing members of the group;
b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The word “genocide” was first coined by Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin in
1944 in his book 2Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It consists of the Greek prefix
genos, meaning race or tribe, and the Latin suffix cide, meaning killing. Lemkin
developed the term partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder
of Jewish people during the Holocaust, but also in response to previous
instances in history of targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular
groups of people. Later on, Raphäel Lemkin led the campaign to have genocide
recognized and codified as an international crime.
Genocide was first recognized as a crime under international law in 1946 by the
United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/96-I). It was codified as an
independent crime in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention). The Convention has been
ratified by 149 States (as of January 2018). The International Court of Justice
(ICJ) has repeatedly stated that the Convention embodies principles that are part
of general customary international law. This means that whether or not States
have ratified the Genocide Convention, they are all bound as a matter of law by
the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law. The
ICJ has also stated that the prohibition of genocide is a peremptory norm of
1
1948 Article 2, UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
2
Lemkin, Raphael. (1944). Axis rule in occupied Europe. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International.
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international law (or ius cogens) and consequently, no derogation from it is
allowed.
On March 25, 1971 Genocide was also committed by Pakistani army in
Bangladesh. The indiscriminate killings of the Bengalis at the hands of the
Pakistan military in 1971 can hardly be exaggerated.
The Pakistan military committed one of the worst genocides in modern history
in the eastern wing of Pakistan, now Bangladesh, from March to December
1971. As many as three million people were killed, thousands were raped, and
some 10 million people were displaced and had to flee the country. The initial
assault termed ‘Operation Searchlight’ Began on 25 March 1971, in which the
Pakistan military killed thousands of people within the first month of the
Genocide. Millions of people became refugees and took shelter in various
refugee camps set up by the Government of India in West Bengal, Tripura,
Meghalaya, Assam and other parts of India. The genocide lasted for nine
months. It finally ended with the surrender of the Pakistan military to the Joint
Command Forces of Bangladesh and India on 16 December 1971.
Although the international media, scholarly researchers, and some policymakers
have highlighted the atrocities committed by the Pakistan military against the
Bengalis in 1971, calling it selective genocide, 3 the bloodbath in Bengal4, one of
the bloodiest slaughters in modern times and so on, the international
community, particularly the United Nations, is yet to recognise the killing as
‘genocide.’ The Bangladesh Parliament has declared 25 March as “Genocide
Remembrance Day” in 2017 to highlight the atrocities and commit Bangladesh
to work relentlessly to put an end to genocide once and for all in this world. In
this connection, several governmental and non-governmental institutions in
Bangladesh have dedicated their time and activities to collecting evidence,
carrying out research, and campaigning for the international recognition of the
1971 Bangladesh Genocide.
Incidents of genocide occurred almost on a daily basis at the hands of the
Pakistan military in March-December 1971. 25 March Around 11 p.m., the
Pakistan military swooped on sleeping Dhaka residents to carry out Operation
Searchlight. The objective was to “destroy” Bengali opposition, which included
disarming and killing Bengali security personnel, liquidating students and
intellectuals, and simply picking up and shooting Bengali men and women,
including factory workers, rickshaw pullers, street vendors, even gardeners.
Dhaka was practically on fire by midnight. Although the violence occurred in
3
Cable from Archer Blood, the United States’ consul general in Dacca in 1971. See, Gary J. Bass, The Blood
Telegram: India’s Secret War in East
Pakistan (Noida: Random House India, 2013), p. xiii.
4
Cited in https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/07/archives/bloodbath-in-bengal.html. Accessed 6 February 2022
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Dhaka’s provincial capital, the Pakistan military carried out ethnic cleansing
operations across Bangladesh. That was simply the start. Death squads
rampaged through Dhaka’s streets, murdering perhaps 7,000 people in a single
night5. Half of Dhaka’s population fled within a week, and 30,000 people were
slaughtered. International media outlets and English-language reference books
have reported fatality counts ranging from 5,000 - 35,000 in Dhaka and
1,500,000 - 3,000,000 in whole Bangladesh from March to December 19716.
The Genocide Committed by Pakistani army was one of the worst holocausts in
new world history. The Pakistani government explicitly denied that there was
no genocide happen during 1971 war and it was just a war of killing. The only
written document or evidence of this genocide is the Proclamation of
Independence 6th Para of the seven schedule of the constitution. It was
announced by the Mujibnagar Government on 10th April 19717. No international
action was taken against the perpetrators of this most barbarous genocide.
5
Paul R. Bartrop, A Biographical Encyclopedia of Contemporary Genocide: Portraits of Evil and Good
(California: ABC-CLIO, 2012), p. 337
6
Syed, Muzaffar H., Anil Kumar, B.D. Usmani & Pramod Gupta, History of Indian Nation: Post-Independence
India (New Delhi: K. K. Publications,
2012), p. 299. See also, Rummel, R J., op.cit.
7
proclamation of independence 1971 , 6th Para of the seven schedule of Constitution of Bangladesh.
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