In 1971, the West Pakistani rulers launched an offensive in East Pakistan to subdue the Awami League and its supporters, as well as Hindus. Ethnic (Hindu) cleansing, forced pregnancy of Hindu women, and deliberate killing of Hindu males to exterminate Bangalee Hindus as a race were the key agenda of the Pakistani military.

As part of the plan, two major acts of butchery took place on May 20 and 21, 1971—in Chuknagar of Khulna and Dakra of Bagerhat—after the formation of the Razakar force, which had assisted the Pakistani Army in carrying out the massacres.

These incidents were the result of General Yahya Khan’s plans and orders to eradicate the Hindus and weaken the Awami League, as found in documents by senior West Pakistan government officials and army personnel.

The official wartime narratives prepared by the then-government led by military strongman Ziaur Rahman also do not contain information about the planned killings of roughly 10-12,000 people in Chuknagar of Khulna and over 2,000 in Dakra of Bagerhat—mostly Hindus trying to cross the border.

Even the timeline of events of 1971, developed by the Liberation War Museum, does not mention the Chuknagar and the Dakar genocide incidents. With these two, there is evidence of at least 42 incidents across the country in which the Hindus were targeted and segregated for butchery during the war. 

The Pakistani Army and their local collaborators in the Peace Committee and Razakar forces—formed mainly with Jamaat-e-Islami members—carried out similar mass killings in Dhapdhup of Panchagarh in April and Saidpur of Nilphamari in June.

Some 3,500 people were massacred in Panchagarh and around 450 in Saidpur (known as the #Golahat Genocide).

Moreover, at least 3,500 Hindus were killed in #Jatibhanga of Thakurgaon, some 900 in #Ataikula of Pabna and around 400 in Kaliganj of Saidpur in April.

In May, there were at least 19 incidents of targeted killings against the Hindus in the northern districts, some in the south and southwest, and others in Chittagong, Comilla and Sylhet districts.

The Hindu killings slowed down in the following months—seven incidents from June till November 22, when at least 43 Hindus were killed at Terashri village of Manikganj.

An article in Time magazine, dated August 2, 1971, stated: “The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Muslim military hatred. Pakistan Army Eastern Command headquarters officials in Dhaka clarified the government’s East Bengal policy. After the elimination or exile of Hindus, their property was going to be shared among the middle-class Muslims.”

Hindus were alleged to have corrupted the Awami League. Pakistani soldiers repeatedly boasted to US Consul General Archer Blood that they came “to kill Hindus”. A witness heard an officer shouting to soldiers: “Why have you killed Muslims? We ordered you to kill only Hindus.”

US government cables noted that the minorities of Bangladesh, especially the Hindus, were specific targets of the Pakistani Army. The US consulate reported the methodical slaughter of Hindu men in cities starting in the first 24 hours of the crackdown, named Operation Searchlight.

Army units entered villages asking where Hindus lived; it was a “common pattern” to kill Hindu males. Hindus were identified because they were not circumcised. Sometimes, the military also massacred Hindu women. There were barely any areas where no Hindus were killed. There was widespread killing of Hindu males and rapes of women.

On April 6, Blood sent a telegram to express dissent of US support for the atrocities committed by Pakistan on the Bangladesh people. The Blood Telegram, as it would become known, reported: “Hindus undeniably special focus of animal brutality.”

Until early May, the US government kept mum on the genocide and officially termed it Pakistan’s internal affairs, but in the Senate, Democrat Senator Edward M Kennedy raised his voice: he urged the United Nations to take necessary steps regarding the crisis.

He also asked the US government to respond to the Indian government’s appeal for aid for the refugees from Bangladesh. At that time, Indian official estimations showed that 1.2 million people fled their homes in East Pakistan to save their lives.

Kennedy, the chairman of the US Senate’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Refugees, was aware of the situation in Dhaka and the border areas. He had access to telegrams sent by Archer K Blood.

Bangladesh posthumously bestowed the “Friends of Liberation War Honour” on Kennedy and Blood for their active contributions in 1971.

After liberation and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s return, Kennedy visited Bangladesh in February 1972 and was given a jubilant reception at Dhaka University on February 15. “Even though the United States government does not recognize you, the people of the world do recognize you,” Kennedy told the crowd.

Senator Kennedy was vocal about Bangladesh throughout the year. In August, he traveled to India and visited refugee camps along East Bengal’s entire border—from Calcutta and West Bengal in the west to the Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling districts in the north to Agartala in the State of Tripura in the east.

He regretted that they were unable to see the source of the refugee flow because the Pakistani government suddenly cancelled visits to East Bengal and Islamabad, the country’s capital.

On November 1, 1971, Senator Kennedy released excerpts from his report on the crisis in South Asia and submitted the report to the US Senate along with a bill to authorize $250 million to assist the international relief effort. “This is the bare minimum, and more may be needed,” he said in his speech.

“What I saw recently in India was the human debris from that night of terror and the subsequent months of violence.

“The brutal suppression in East Bengal is the third disaster to befall that area in little more than a year. In the summer of 1970, floods destroyed crops and killed thousands of people. In November, a cyclone hit the coastal region and killed an estimated 400,000 people. Now comes a man-made disaster, whose fury is producing even greater death and widespread misery among those who survive.”

The Hindu community members were the hardest hit, Kennedy said in his report. They were “robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and, in some places, painted with yellow patches marked ‘H’. All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad.”

“More than 60% of the Bengali refugees who fled to India were Hindus. It has been alleged that this widespread violence against Hindus was motivated by a policy to purge East Pakistan of what was seen as Hindu and Indian influences. Buddhist temples and Buddhist monks were also attacked through the course of the year.”

He deplored the US government’s “unconscionably silent” response.

“Neither the President nor the Secretary of State nor any high official of our government has made a single public statement condemning the Pakistan government’s policy of violence and repression. Not until late in the summer—months after the tragedy began—did the President publicly comment on the situation in South Asia.

“Our actions toward East Bengal have demonstrated a largely mechanistic and insensitive calculation of what is within our national interest and tradition.

“If South Asia today is on the brink of war and even greater tragedy, our government’s policy bears a special responsibility. For our continued military and economic support of the military regime in Islamabad has encouraged Pakistan intransigency and fed frustrations in India and East Bengal. It is long overdue for us to rescue our foreign policy from a course that has been disastrous both to our best traditions and interests in South Asia.”

Kennedy said it was the most appalling tide of human misery in modern times and that “the problem of refugees in India and the plight of the people in East Bengal must become a matter of vital concern to the American people and their government”.

Foreign journalists report harrowing tales

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Sydney Schanberg covered the start of the war and wrote extensively on the suffering of the East Bengalis, including the Hindus, both during and after the conflict.

In a syndicated column, “The Pakistani Slaughter That Nixon Ignored,” he wrote about his return to liberated Bangladesh in 1972. “Other reminders were the yellow ‘H’ the Pakistanis had painted on the homes of Hindus, particular targets of the Muslim army” (by “Muslim army”, meaning the Pakistan Army, which had targeted Bengali Muslims as well). Bangladesh reported massacres occurring on a daily basis. One priest reported to Schanberg about the slaughter of over a thousand Hindus in the southern district of Barisal in one day. According to another priest, a meeting was called in the northeastern Sylhet district. Later troops arrived and, from the gathered crowd, selected 300 Hindus and shot them dead.

London-based The Sunday Times reported on June 13 that the Pakistan government’s policy for East Bengal was spelled out to me in the Eastern Command headquarters at Dacca. It has three elements:

1. The Bengalis have proved themselves unreliable and must be ruled by West Pakistanis.

2. The Bengalis will have to be re-educated along proper Islamic lines. The Islamization of the masses—this is the official jargon—is intended to eliminate secessionist tendencies and provide a strong religious bond with West Pakistan.

3. When the Hindus have been eliminated by death and fight, their property will be used as a golden carrot to win over the underprivileged Muslim middle class. This will provide the base for future administrative and political structures.

According to RJ Rummel, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii: “The genocide and gendercidal atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers.”

These “willing executioners” were fueled by an abiding anti-Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority. “Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens.”

In his book, Rummel describes a chilling genocidal ritual, reminiscent of Nazi procedure towards Jewish males: “In what became province-wide acts of genocide, Hindus were sought out and killed on the spot. As a matter of course, soldiers would check males for the obligatory circumcision among Moslems. If circumcised, they might live; if not, sure death.”

Rummel writes: “The human death toll over only 267 days was incredible. Just to give for five out of the eighteen districts some incomplete statistics published in Bangladesh newspapers or by an Inquiry Committee, the Pakistani army killed 100,000 Bengalis in Dacca, 150,000 in Khulna, 75,000 in Jessore, 95,000 in Comilla, and 100,000 in Chittagong. For eighteen districts, the total is 1,247,000 killed. This was an incomplete toll, and to this day no one really knows the final toll. Some estimates of the democide are much lower — one is of 300,000 dead — but most range from 1 million to 3 million. … The Pakistani army and allied paramilitary groups killed about one out of every sixty-one people in Pakistan overall; one out of every twenty-five Bengalis, Hindus, and others in East Pakistan. If the rate of killing for all of Pakistan is annualized over the years the Yahya martial law regime was in power (March 1969 to December 1971), then this one regime was more lethal than that of the Soviet Union, China under the communists, or Japan under the military (even through World War II).”

The Wall Street Journal on July 27 reported: “To help control of Bengali population, the army has been setting up a network of peace committees superimposed upon the normal civil administration, which the army cannot fully rely upon. Peace Committee members are drawn from Biharis and from the Muslim Leagues and Jamat-e-Islami. The peace committees serve as the agent of army, informing on civil administration as well as on general populace. They are also in charge of confiscating and redistribution of shops and lands from Hindu and pro-independence Bengalis. The peace committee also recruits Razakars. Many of them are common criminals who have thrown their lots with the (Pakistan) army.”

Journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Pakistani captain as telling him: “We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one”. This is the arrogance of Power.

Pakistani mindset

A Pakistani soldier confessed: “…we were told to kill the Hindus and Kafirs (non-believer in God). One day in June, we cordoned a village and were ordered to kill the Kafirs in that area. We found all the village women reciting from the Holy Quran, and the men holding special congregational prayers seeking God’s mercy. But they were unlucky. Our commanding officer ordered us not to waste any time.”

Lt Col Aziz Ahmed Khan reported that in May 1971 there was a written order to kill Hindus, and that General Niazi would ask troops how many Hindus they had killed.

General Niazi said: “It was a low lying land of low lying people. The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that [should] best be exterminated. As to the Moslem Bengalis, they were to live only on the sufferance of the soldiers: any infraction, any suspicion cast on them, any need for reprisal, could mean their death. And the soldiers were free to kill at will.”

The Punjabi Governor of East Pakistan, Firoz Khan Noon described the Bengali voice of dissent as a conspiracy of “clever politicians and disruptionists from within the Muslim community and caste Hindus and communists from Calcutta as well as from inside Pakistan.”

A former brigadier stated that Farman Ali was the principal architect of the plan to crush the Bengalis with force and was directly involved in the Hindu Basti massacre.

Major Rathore told Anthony Mascarenhas at Comilla in April 1971: “Now under the cover of fighting we have an excellent opportunity of finishing them off…Of course, we are only killing the Hindu men. We are soldiers, not cowards like the rebels.”

At 9th Division HQ at Comilla, Major Bashir justified the military action by stating that Bengali Muslims were “Hindu at heart” and this was a war between pure and impure.

His superior, Colonel Naim, justified the killing of the Hindu civilian population to prevent a Hindu takeover of Bengali commerce and culture. Hindus “undermined the Muslim masses”. He said Bengali culture to a great extent was Hindu culture and “we have to sort them out to restore the land to the people.”

Journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Punjabi captain as telling him: “We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one. This is the arrogance of Power.”

In September 1947, the Pakistan government printed currency notes, issued coins, printed money orders and post cards in English and Urdu only. In 1947, the circular of Pakistan Public Service Commission had made provision of Urdu, English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Latin and other languages but made no provision of Bengali.

In an attempt to “purify” Bengali culture of Hindu influences, Pakistan government decided to change the script of Bengali. In total disregard of the local sentiments and even constitution itself, central government set up centres teaching Bengali in Arabic script. The Bengali protest started on this language issue.

Colonel Nadir Ali, a retired Army officer, Punjabi poet and short story writer, said: “During the fateful months preceding the dismemberment of Pakistan, I served as a young Captain, meantime promoted to the rank of the Major, in Dhaka as well as Chittagong. In my position as second-in-command and later as commander, I served with 3 Commando Battalion. My first action was in mid-April 1971. ‘It is Mujib-ur-Rahman’s home district. It is a hard area. Kill as many bastards as you can and make sure there is no Hindu left alive,’ I was ordered. I replied, ‘Sir, I do not kill unarmed civilians who do not fire at me.’ ‘Kill the Hindus. It is an order for everyone. Don’t show me your commando finesse!’”

He said: “An order was given to kill the Hindus. I received the same order many times and was reminded of it. The West Pakistani soldiery considered that Kosher. The Hamood Ur Rehman Commission Report mentions this order. Of the ninety-three lakh (9.3 million) refugees in India, ninety lakh (9 million) were Hindus.”

Noted Pakistani writer Ahmad Salim, a former professor at Karachi University, said that before the independence of Bangladesh, the Pakistani government told the people of the then West Pakistan that the then East Pakistanis were Hindu due to their multi-dimensional culture.

Explaining the apprehensions of West Pakistanis, Niazi stated: “The government would be formed by Bengalis; the iron fist in the velvet glove would be that of Hindus. After the sweeping victory of Awami League in 1970, Yahya’s intelligence Chief, Major General Akbar Khan, said: “We will not hand over power to these bastards.’”