By
Sheuli Akter
The Bangladeshi government will take steps to try 195 Pakistani army personnel for crimes against humanity committed during the country ‘s war of independence in 1971.
Banaladesh’s Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said this Thursday while replying to a journalist’s question “whether the government would be able to try 195 Pakistani army personnel for their crimes against humanity in 1971 in line with the Simla Agreement.”
The Simla Agreement was signed between India and Pakistan on July 2, 1972 in Simla, the capital city of the Indian state of Himachal, months after Bangladesh’s Liberation war in which the Indian army took part as an ally of Bangladesh on December 3, 1971, immediately before Bangladesh’s victory which fell on the 16th of that month.
“Steps will be taken through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to bring the accused Pakistani army personnel to put them under trial,” Kamal told journalists after a program at Ashulia industrial area on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka on Thursday.
Bangladesh have so far executed four oppostion leaders including Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, secretary general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), for war crimes in 1971, working as local collaborators of the Pakistani Army.
The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh’s independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, said about 3 million people were killed in the war.
It also stated that over 300,000 women fell victim to torture, including rape by the Pakistani occupation forces and their local collaborators.
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