Bangladesh asks Pak to apologise

“We appreciate the Pakistani government’s position,” the spokesman for the Bangladesh Government said. “We would, however, like them to go a little further to express their regrets for the crimes their army committed against the people of Bangladesh during the liberation war.”

About three million civilians died in the nine-month war. The war had been triggered by a Pakistani military crackdown on March 25, 1971 in what was formerly known as East Pakistan. It later broke away to become the independent state of Bangladesh.

The war ended when India sent its troops into Bangladesh and made the Pakistani forces surrender.

Bangladesh claimed Pakistani soldiers were responsible for genocide, including mass rape, arson and looting, forcing about ten million Bengalis to flee to India as refugees.

Sharif reportedly told a political gathering in Karachi last week that it was unfortunate that nobody had been punished for the tragedy and declared that he would definitely put the guilty in the dock.

Sharif, who was in Bangladesh on an official tour earlier this month, did not specifically lay the blame on certain persons for the dismemberment of Pakistan. A high-level judicial enquiry had also been held on the 1971 debacle but the report was never made public.

Sharif is the first Pakistani head of government to pledge publicly that those responsible for the 1971 crimes would not without punishment.

Dhaka also welcomed Sharif’s reported pledge to accept around 2,40,000 Urdu-speaking Pakistani nationals who have remained stranded in Bangladesh since 1971.

During talks with Sharif in Dhaka, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina requested the Pakistani leader to take back the Biharis living in refugee camps for the last 26 years.

Hasina described the upkeep of the stranded Pakistanis as a “big economic burden” on Bangladesh.