Press Release

As part of its mandate of sounding early warnings of impending genocide and ethnic cleansing in various parts of the world, ICHRRF has been shining the spotlight on the rising tide of mass killings and violence against the Bangladeshi Hindu minority. In this vein, at the recently concluded Forgotten Genocides Convention near Washington, DC, ICHRRF reiterated its assessment that the mass killings in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in 1971 at the hands of the Pakistan Army and local Bangla Razakars (volunteers) was unequivocally a genocide.

The overwhelming documented evidence of racially and religiously targeted mass murder by Islamist Razakars and the Pakistan Army was brought out clearly in ICHRRF's Special Hearings on the Bangladesh atrocities of 1971 held in December of 2021, after which a full Hearings Report was published. The judgment in the Hearings Report was unanimous that it was a planned and ruthlessly executed genocide that claimed approximately 3 million non-combatant civilian lives in the short space of 9 months.

The widely publicized atrocities by the Pakistan Army and local Bengali Islamist Razakars was intended, by their own admission, to target Hindus or those Muslims who were still culturally Hindu in their appearance and dress. Their targeted atrocities included the public mass rape of Bengali women, totaling at least 200,000 cases of public rape and being paraded naked in public. 

The cultural and religious contempt that informed these actions was reflected in the mirth with which these horrific atrocities were treated in West Pakistani newspapers and civic society, with jokes about their soldiers contributing to the "genetic improvement" of the Bengali people.

At estimated 80% to 90% of the victims of this genocide and sexual violence were Bangladeshi Hindus. Since Bangladesh's separation from India in 1947, this beleaguered minority's share of the population has fallen from 25% to 8% today, as they continue to face renewed pogroms this year in the wake of the Islamist coup against the Sheikh Hasina government.

Then, as now, Islamist violence against Bangladesh's Hindu minority has proceeded brazenly due to the tacit support of foreign governments, including Western governments that see Bangladesh and Pakistan as pliant geopolitical footholds in the region. Geopolitical commentators who spoke at the Forgotten Genocides Convention pointed out the myopic gains and long-term loss of trust from such a policy.

ICHRRF has again highlighted the 1971 genocide to point to the extent to which the violence has risen in the past. The current level of arson, rape, killing, destruction of Hindu temples, banning of Hindu festivals and general repression may not yet meet the threshold of a genocide, but the overall pattern is one of ethnic cleansing on a massive scale. ICHRRF urges conscientious governments and non-governmental organizations to document and sound the warning against this continuing tragedy.