US resolution seeks genocide recognition for 1971 Pak atrocities against Bengali Hindus
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Washington: US Congressman Greg Landsman has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for the recognition of atrocities committed by the Pakistani Army and its allies, Jamaat-e-Islami, against Bengali Hindus on March 25, 1971, as “war crimes and genocide.”
Landsman, a Democrat representing Ohio, moved the resolution on Friday, and it has been referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The resolution details that on the night of March 25, 1971, the Government of Pakistan imprisoned Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, while military units, alongside radical Islamist groups inspired by Jamaat-e-Islami, launched a general crackdown across East Pakistan, code-named “Operation Searchlight”, involving widespread massacres of civilians.
It cites a telegram sent on March 28, 1971, by United States Consul General in Dacca, Archer Blood, titled “Selective Genocide”, which reported: “Moreover, with support of Pak military, non-Bengali Muslims are systematically attacking poor people’s quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus.”
Landsman also referred to the “Blood Telegram” of April 6, 1971, in which Consul General Blood, joined by 20 members of the Consulate General in Dacca, protested the US Government’s silence on the conflict. Blood wrote: “But we have chosen not to intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the Awami conflict, in which unfortunately the overworked term genocide is applicable, is purely an internal matter of a sovereign state.”
The resolution urges the House of Representatives to condemn the atrocities committed by the Armed Forces of Pakistan against the people of Bangladesh on March 25, 1971. It states that the Pakistani Army and its Islamist allies indiscriminately mass-murdered ethnic Bengalis regardless of religion or gender, killed political leaders, intellectuals, professionals, and students, and forced tens of thousands of women into sexual slavery.
The resolution further highlights that religious minority Hindus were specifically targeted for extermination through mass killings, gangrape, forced conversions, and expulsion.
Noting that entire ethnic groups or religious communities are not responsible for the crimes committed by their members, the resolution calls on the President of the United States to officially recognise the atrocities committed against ethnic Bengali Hindus during 1971 as crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.
With PTI inputs