Joy calls for int’l recognition of brutal act by Pak army as genocide

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ICT Affairs Adviser and Bangabandhu's grandson Sajeeb Wazed Joy has urged the international community to recognise the brutal act of Pakistan Army as genocide.

"In 1971, the Pak Army massacred the people of then East Pakistan just because they wanted to have a better life. Bengalis wanted to be heard, to be recognised as equal to the West Pakistani rulers. Instead, they were killed mercilessly in their sleep," he said this in a facebook post on his verified account.

Joy said on 25 March, Yahya Khan's underling Tikka Khan mobilised death squads to initiate "Operation Searchlight" and they killed 7,000 Bengalis in a single night.

From that day till the end of the Liberation War 1971, Pakistani soldiers raped more than 2,00,000 women and killed more than three million people, he mentioned.

He said this massive genocide displaced 30-40 million Bengalis and more than 10 million people took refuge in India.

The Hamoodur Rahman Commission's report is the most critical piece of evidence of the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide, he said, adding that this report found the Pakistani military deployed in East Pakistan guilty of widespread atrocities, serious acts of human rights violations and other abuses of power.

The then Prime Minister of Pakistan ZA Bhutto ordered to burn every copy of this report, he said.

Joy said these heinous crimes are yet to be universally recognised as genocide.

Not recognising the events of 1971 as genocide will not just be severe injustice done to the memories of the victims of genocide, it will be an injustice done to history itself, he observed.