The courageous Pakistan army stand on the eastern front

[LaBong]

How do I know whether the 'tales' are true or not, or whether they are even from actual 'victims' and not merely embellishments by the authors? That is where vetting and verification comes into play. You contact the people who are alleged to be making these claims and verify them. Without that any individual can right a book and concoct stories of 'a thousand people who shared their stories with him', and claim that they are true.

A moot point considering I never cited them as a source for actual number of persons killed.

The analysis on Ms Bose arguments does not offer any evidence supporting either the hundreds of thousands raped numbers nor does it provide evidence supporting the genocide claims. The fact remains that no orders from the military high command calling for systematic rape and elimination of ethnic groups were found, and all officers interviewed have denied any such policy. Were such a policy of systematic atrocities in place, there would be some evidence of official directives to that effect.

Now this is not to suggest that atrocities did not take place, discipline did break down and rapes and murders did occur, but there is nothing to support the astronomical numbers being claimed or the 'policy of systematic rape and genocide by the PA' claims.

Once again, the analysis wasn't suppose to provide evidence rather was supposed to refute Ms Bose's claim of 'few thousands of rapes' occurred, and it does royally debunk Ms Bose's research. Yet again, the onus was on her to disproved an established claim.

And how high command not issuing any directive or lack of any official directive makes it any less systematic killing escapes my logic! Are you going to come up with the 'Non-state actor' argument now?

 

[LaBong]

Suprisingly though...nine of ten times...in all of these online interactions..71 is not mentioned by Bengali's.. who truly suffered those 26 years of bias and neglect..but rather by Indians..wonder what the motivation there is.

May be because they were a stakeholder of war and may be because they are Bengalis themselves. Why see all the Indians through a cynical prism of distrust which you otherwise claim to be a common trait of Indians?

However I appreciate your response which is lot more humane in approach than your other countrymen.

 

[foxbat]

How come indians are more concerned about this matter than our Bangladeshi friends - this happened nearly 40 years a go, it was not a genocide, there is no international tribunal at the Hague, waiting for Pakistani soldiers or officers - and if one was attempted, the US, China - would veto it.

Er.. The thread about 40 years ago event was started by neither an Indian nor a Bangladeshi member but a Pakistani one.

 

[Pagla Dashu]

From ‘Genocide’, The Sunday Times; by Anthony Mascarenhas; 13 June, 1971:

‘This is genocide conducted with amazing casualness. Sitting in the office of Major Agha, Martial Law Administator of Comilla City, on the morning of April 19, I saw the off-hand manner in which sentences were meted out. A Bihari sub-inspector of police had walked in with a list of prisoners being held in the police lock-up. Agha looked it over. Then, with a flick of his pencil, he casually ticked off four names on the list. “Bring these four to me this evening for disposal,” he said. He looked at the list again. The pencil flicked once more “and bring this thief along with them.” The death sentence had been pronounced over a glass of coconut milk. I was informed that two of the prisoners were Hindus, the third a ‘student’ and the fourth an Awami League organizer. The ‘thief’ it transpired, was a lad named Sebastian who had been caught moving the household effects of a Hindu friend to his own house. Later that evening I saw these men, their hands and legs tied loosely with a single rope, being led down the road, to the Circuit House compound. A little after curfew, which was at 6 o’clock , a flock of squawking mynah birds were disturbed in their play by the thwacking sound of wooden clubs meeting bone and flesh.’​

From ‘Day of Terror for 50,000 Bengalis’, New York Times; by Fox Butterfield, reporting from Kholampura; 28 Dec, 1971:

‘It was the beginning of 24 hours of terror, Mr. Hajiuddin recalls, for his East Pakistani village of 2,000 and for some 50,000 Bengali farmers and fishermen in 70 surrounding villages. Before the 200 soldiers finished the next day they had killed uncounted thousands, burned nearly every house to the ground and looted most of the stores in their campaign to put down the Bengali secessionist movement. In the six villages in the area visited by this correspondent, the inhabitants estimated that each household had lost tow or three members. There was hardly a house left standing. Similar stories were told by men from other villages in the cluster, which lies on the west bank of the Buriganga River about 10 miles northwest of Dacca. 5 of 13 members of Mr. Hajiuddin’s family were shot or bayoneted. His rice mill, storehouses and elaborate brick residence were burned. What the Pakistanis did to the women in his family he will not discuss. [……] From family compound the soldiers move inland, burning every house in Kholamura to the ground.

Maliah Dasi, a girl of 7 with large, sad eyes, was shot as she fled into the rice fields. Her face and chest were badly burned, leaving large scars, and her left arm is gone below the elbow. [……] Jogesh Sarkar, a prosperous electrician, fled with his four children but left his eight cattle tied to the house. The soldiers piled straw on them and set them afire. [……] Myah Dasi, a young mother of three, could not run from the troops fast enough, the villagers related, because she was carrying her baby. A group of soldiers knocked her to the ground, took the suitcase she was carrying and began beating her and kicking her in the head. When she bled profusely they left her. But, the villagers continued, they burned her mother alive in her thatched house and bayoneted her sister, who was also fleeing with a baby.[……] the troops repeated the process in Khagail, a small village.​

From ‘The Killings at Hariharpara’, Washington Post; by Lewis M. Simons; 10 Jan, 1971:

‘…the survivors of the killing at Hariharpara are among the luckiest of any who escaped the Pakistani army. For this village near Dacca was not just a scene of brutality. It was an extermination camp. In one month, April, Pakistani firing squads are reported to have systematically eliminated 20,000 Bengalis here. According to eye witnesses, this is what happened: Beginning at sundown each evening, the soldiers dragged the Bengalis, men and women, bound together in batches of six and eight, to the Burhiganga river front to be killed. While their executioners loomed above them on a wooden pier they were made to wade out into knee-deep water. Then the rifles opened up. And the firing and the screaming shattered the hot night air until dawn. Each morning, village boatmen were forced to bring their high-powered craft into the bloody water and haul the bodies out to midstream, where they were cut loose to drift downriver. Victims were brought to Hariharpara by trucks from other villages, from the nearby town of Narayanganj and from the East Pakistani capital of Dacca, eight miles to the north. Their hands tied behind their backs they were kept prisoners in a large riverside warehouse of the Pakistan National Oil Company until their time came to die.

Mohammed Masud, the officer in charge of the Fatulla Police District, was on of many local people who witnessed the assassinations. “Each night I would hide in my headquarters,” he said pointing to a small yellow building a hundred yards upstream from the oil-slick pier. “There is nothing I can tell you that would fully describe the horror of this butchery,” said Masud, an articulate, man of 45 with thick gray hair and the demeanor of a school teacher. “It became a crime to be a Bengali,” he went on, “The soldiers would say ‘are you a Bengali?’ and if you were, you would be killed.” One morning, he said, he saw a thousand bodies heaped in the water before the boatmen came. “There were so many that the Pakistanis never noticed one man who slipped into the water as if dead and them swam quietly upstream to my, headquarter. We clothed him and helped him slip away. I think he is still alive. Masud said there were two Pakistani army officers based at Narayanganj who were in charge of the executions. He identified them as Captains Faiaz and Parvez. “I will never forget them.” He said as he pointed to their names in a thick blue ledger. “The b@star@rds. The bloody b@st@rds.” The special targets of the executioners were members of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League, students, professional people and others of some accomplishment, Masud said. On April 18, he recalled, Capt. Faiaz ordered him to round up all the Awami Leaguers in Hariharpara for summary execution, or be killed himself. “I decided I could not do it,” he said. “I went home to await my fate. But the b@st@rd never came for me. I suppose he was getting his fill of killing anyway.” [……] “My god,” said Masud “The Biharis did everything the soldiers told them to. kill these people. Catch those. Finger some others. My God, what the Biharis did to us.” [……] Masud and several villagers recalled how the delicate ethnic balance was irretrievably smashed. At about 1 p.m March 26, just hours after the Pakistani army launched its merciless crackdown in Dacca, about 300 soldiers marched into the village from their camps at two nearby vegetable oil mills and a power plant. The soldiers gave weapons to the Biharis. Then, together, they began looting Bengali houses.’​

From ‘Bengalis’ Land, A Vast Cemetery’, New York Times; by Sydney H. Schanberg; 23 Jan, 1972:

‘In Khulna, one of the Pakistani execution sites was a road on the edge of town that leads west to Satkhira. Though truckloads of skeletons have recently been carried away for proper burial, bones are still scattered along the gray roadside for over a mile. Both Bengalis and foreigners who live in Khulna say that at least 10,000 people were killed at this site alone. [……] “They killed some people every day,” said Mokhlesur Rahman, a 26-year old technician. “Sometimes 5 or 6. Sometimes 20. On one day, they killed 500. On Sept. 3, they killed the most – 1,000 people. They fired with machine guns almost continuously for three hours. Then they threw many of the bodies into the river and they were carried out to sea.” [……] Another engineer, Mazedul Haque, 25, vividly remembered the day the Pakistani killed 500 people – July 25 – “by shooting and by cutting their throats with long knives and bayonets. First the soldiers came and told us to come out and watch,” he said. “They said ‘Come and see how we kill your people.’ They were sharpening their knives on the stones. It was their way of torturing us mentally.” […… ]

All the evidence now indicates that the killings were on wider scale and more sadistic than foreign newsmen and other independent observers had earlier thought. According to confirmed reports, the Pakistani troops in nearly every sector kept Bengali women as sexual slaves, often making them remain naked continuously in their bunkers. After the Pakistanis surrendered on Dec. 16, the mutilated bodies of many of these women were found. Other independent reports established that the Pakistanis also killed many, if not most, of the Indian soldiers they took prisoner. In these cases, too, bodies were mutilated. […….] The minority Hindu community was a special target of the Moslem Pakistani Army. [……] The yellow “H” that the Pakistanis painted on doors of Hindu homes and shops are still there…[……]

Many of the elite were murdered, some in the last few days before surrender, apparently as part of official Pakistani policy to try to decimate the Bengali leadership. Professors, students, political activists, journalists, engineers and railway technicians were all targets. Everyday, new mass graves are discovered. Every day, the newspapers run long lists of notices asking for information about missing persons. In the capital, Dacca, many execution grounds have been found – particularly in sections like Mirpur and Mohammedpur, which are populated largely by non-Bengalis who collaborated with the Pakistanis. One corner of the zoo in Mirpur is strewn with skeletons with hands tied behind backs. Many of the animals were also killed. In the Sialbari neighborhood of Mirpur, skeletons seem to lie behind every bush and down every well. On the floor of a Bengali peasant’s ruined house stands a large pile of crushed bones – crushed, apparently, to prevent identification. A well 60 feet deep is filled to within two feet of the top with human bones.​

These reporters were of course biased and fools. These silly men visited the places of crime, interviewed the survivors and the witnesses, who were obviously ‘concocting’ their stories, wasting all their time and energy, when what they should have actually done has been so wisely illustrated by Mr Hamoodur Rahman, and his protégé Ms Bose - visit Pakistan, interview the accused, take them as oracle’s words (why waste time on cross-verification), forget the victims, form opinion in an air-conditioned office and go back home. And bam! you have 'solid' evidence.

 

[LaBong]

These reporters were of course biased and fools. These silly men visited the places of crime, interviewed the survivors and the witnesses, who were obviously ‘concocting’ their stories, wasting all their time and energy, when what they should have actually done has been so wisely illustrated by Mr Hamoodur Rahman, and his protégé Ms Bose - visit Pakistan, interview the accused, take them as oracle’s words (why waste time on cross-verification), forget the victims, form opinion in an air-conditioned office and go back home. And bam! you have 'solid' evidence.

It's funny how every other sources ultimately trace back to HR commission report which kind of became the last resort to genocide deniers. It's like PA troopers were bunch of pinocchios, just one look at them made Mr Rahaman or Ms Bose sure of the piety of their words! Cross verification is not at all needed, for all you know those Bangladeshis were illiterate and the literate ones could be willing to participate!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

They probably should have, but it fails to qualify as a credible source as they didn't. The onus is on you to disprove the genocidal claim, not the other way around.

One cannot prove or disprove something that does not exist - i.e. it is a logical fallacy to ask someone to prove a negative - an argument from ignorance or argumentum ad ignoratium. It is up to the individual claiming the existence of something or the occurrence of some event (existence of God or genocide) to prove that the event occurred.

It is therefore up to you to prove your claims, not to me to disprove something that I believe did not happen.

Haven't we already done with this exercise? The point remains HC commission didn't even visited Bangladesh or interviewed a single victim. How hard is it to understand?

Yet the HRC analyzed field reports from military units charged with eliminating the insurgency to come up with casualty figures that match Mujib's own numbers. They based their estimate on evidence, not speculation and unverified reports.

I read the posts but didn't think you'd come up with a unofficial invitation based seminar where they didn't reach a decision on consensus as credible source!!

They reached consensus that the death toll was much lower than is traditionally reported, and that there needs to be joint effort to understand the events in 1971 i.e the existing reports and claims are inaccurate.

First of all Bangladeshi scholars claimed the death toll was close to 300,000, not 30,000.

They claimed Mujib's speech was mistranslated to 3 million instead of 300,000, not that the death toll was 300,000.

The only Indian scholar named in the article, unsurprisingly, Ms Bose. That left us to Pakistani scholars, and last but not the least ..

It doesn't account as a different source when it is, just as Ms Bose, using HR commission report to churn out the number.

The only number based on verifiable reports and evidence.

It all depends on your and mine perception of verified sources. Pardon me, for not taking testimony of those, who are blamed of raping and murdering, as verified source.

It is not about sources, but the methodology used by sources to come with the estimates. The HR commission and the Bangladesh commission used actual evidence - field reports from military units, interviews and claims by family members - that is verifiable evidence.

You have yet to show me what methodology any of your sources used to come up with the figures they claim, despite repeated requests to do so.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

From ‘Genocide’, The Sunday Times; by Anthony Mascarenhas; 13 June, 1971:

‘This is genocide conducted with amazing casualness. Sitting in the office of Major Agha, Martial Law Administator of Comilla City, on the morning of April 19, I saw the off-hand manner in which sentences were meted out. A Bihari sub-inspector of police had walked in with a list of prisoners being held in the police lock-up. Agha looked it over. Then, with a flick of his pencil, he casually ticked off four names on the list. “Bring these four to me this evening for disposal,” he said. He looked at the list again. The pencil flicked once more “and bring this thief along with them.” The death sentence had been pronounced over a glass of coconut milk. I was informed that two of the prisoners were Hindus, the third a ‘student’ and the fourth an Awami League organizer. The ‘thief’ it transpired, was a lad named Sebastian who had been caught moving the household effects of a Hindu friend to his own house. Later that evening I saw these men, their hands and legs tied loosely with a single rope, being led down the road, to the Circuit House compound. A little after curfew, which was at 6 o’clock , a flock of squawking mynah birds were disturbed in their play by the thwacking sound of wooden clubs meeting bone and flesh.’​

A credible account, from a direct identified eyewitness, but four people killed does not equate genocide, nor does the manner in which the officer acted indicate genocide. It does indicate a war crime and an atrocity but not genocide, whose definition should have been read by the author before bandying the word about.

BTW, this is the same author who also stated that “It speaks volumes for the discipline of the West Pakistan army,
that its officers were able to keep the soldiers in check during what was to them a nightmare of 25 days.”

So since we both agree on the credibility of the source, I assume this ends the refusal on your part to believe that the East Pakistani insurgents/terrorists had engaged in widespread atrocities and violence against the West Pakistani civilians and military and eventually led to the military crackdown by the Pakistani Army to quell the violence and terrorism.

From ‘Day of Terror for 50,000 Bengalis’, New York Times; by Fox Butterfield, reporting from Kholampura; 28 Dec, 1971:

‘It was the beginning of 24 hours of terror, Mr. Hajiuddin recalls, for his East Pakistani village of 2,000 and for some 50,000 Bengali farmers and fishermen in 70 surrounding villages. Before the 200 soldiers finished the next day they had killed uncounted thousands, burned nearly every house to the ground and looted most of the stores in their campaign to put down the Bengali secessionist movement. In the six villages in the area visited by this correspondent, the inhabitants estimated that each household had lost tow or three members. There was hardly a house left standing. Similar stories were told by men from other villages in the cluster, which lies on the west bank of the Buriganga River about 10 miles northwest of Dacca. 5 of 13 members of Mr. Hajiuddin’s family were shot or bayoneted. His rice mill, storehouses and elaborate brick residence were burned. What the Pakistanis did to the women in his family he will not discuss. [……] From family compound the soldiers move inland, burning every house in Kholamura to the ground.

Maliah Dasi, a girl of 7 with large, sad eyes, was shot as she fled into the rice fields. Her face and chest were badly burned, leaving large scars, and her left arm is gone below the elbow. [……] Jogesh Sarkar, a prosperous electrician, fled with his four children but left his eight cattle tied to the house. The soldiers piled straw on them and set them afire. [……] Myah Dasi, a young mother of three, could not run from the troops fast enough, the villagers related, because she was carrying her baby. A group of soldiers knocked her to the ground, took the suitcase she was carrying and began beating her and kicking her in the head. When she bled profusely they left her. But, the villagers continued, they burned her mother alive in her thatched house and bayoneted her sister, who was also fleeing with a baby.[……] the troops repeated the process in Khagail, a small village.​

This is typical of accounts on 1971 taking wide liberties with the truth. While the account does provide a handful of direct cases and interviews as evidence, it also resorts to unverified rhetoric of 'thousands killed out of 50,000' without actually verifying the number.

From ‘The Killings at Hariharpara’, Washington Post; by Lewis M. Simons; 10 Jan, 1971:

‘…the survivors of the killing at Hariharpara are among the luckiest of any who escaped the Pakistani army. For this village near Dacca was not just a scene of brutality. It was an extermination camp. In one month, April, Pakistani firing squads are reported to have systematically eliminated 20,000 Bengalis here. According to eye witnesses, this is what happened: Beginning at sundown each evening, the soldiers dragged the Bengalis, men and women, bound together in batches of six and eight, to the Burhiganga river front to be killed. While their executioners loomed above them on a wooden pier they were made to wade out into knee-deep water. Then the rifles opened up. And the firing and the screaming shattered the hot night air until dawn. Each morning, village boatmen were forced to bring their high-powered craft into the bloody water and haul the bodies out to midstream, where they were cut loose to drift downriver. Victims were brought to Hariharpara by trucks from other villages, from the nearby town of Narayanganj and from the East Pakistani capital of Dacca, eight miles to the north. Their hands tied behind their backs they were kept prisoners in a large riverside warehouse of the Pakistan National Oil Company until their time came to die.

Mohammed Masud, the officer in charge of the Fatulla Police District, was on of many local people who witnessed the assassinations. “Each night I would hide in my headquarters,” he said pointing to a small yellow building a hundred yards upstream from the oil-slick pier. “There is nothing I can tell you that would fully describe the horror of this butchery,” said Masud, an articulate, man of 45 with thick gray hair and the demeanor of a school teacher. “It became a crime to be a Bengali,” he went on, “The soldiers would say ‘are you a Bengali?’ and if you were, you would be killed.” One morning, he said, he saw a thousand bodies heaped in the water before the boatmen came. “There were so many that the Pakistanis never noticed one man who slipped into the water as if dead and them swam quietly upstream to my, headquarter. We clothed him and helped him slip away. I think he is still alive. Masud said there were two Pakistani army officers based at Narayanganj who were in charge of the executions. He identified them as Captains Faiaz and Parvez. “I will never forget them.” He said as he pointed to their names in a thick blue ledger. “The b@star@rds. The bloody b@st@rds.” The special targets of the executioners were members of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League, students, professional people and others of some accomplishment, Masud said. On April 18, he recalled, Capt. Faiaz ordered him to round up all the Awami Leaguers in Hariharpara for summary execution, or be killed himself. “I decided I could not do it,” he said. “I went home to await my fate. But the b@st@rd never came for me. I suppose he was getting his fill of killing anyway.” [……] “My god,” said Masud “The Biharis did everything the soldiers told them to. kill these people. Catch those. Finger some others. My God, what the Biharis did to us.” [……] Masud and several villagers recalled how the delicate ethnic balance was irretrievably smashed. At about 1 p.m March 26, just hours after the Pakistani army launched its merciless crackdown in Dacca, about 300 soldiers marched into the village from their camps at two nearby vegetable oil mills and a power plant. The soldiers gave weapons to the Biharis. Then, together, they began looting Bengali houses.’​

Yet more anecdotal rhetoric. The Police Officer contradicts himself when he claims that the military was killing all Bengalis, and then later claims that they wanted him to round up the Awami League members. An event that needs more investigation certainly, but one bitter individual's word alone cannot be taken as evidence.

From ‘Bengalis’ Land, A Vast Cemetery’, New York Times; by Sydney H. Schanberg; 23 Jan, 1972:

‘In Khulna, one of the Pakistani execution sites was a road on the edge of town that leads west to Satkhira. Though truckloads of skeletons have recently been carried away for proper burial, bones are still scattered along the gray roadside for over a mile. Both Bengalis and foreigners who live in Khulna say that at least 10,000 people were killed at this site alone. [……] “They killed some people every day,” said Mokhlesur Rahman, a 26-year old technician. “Sometimes 5 or 6. Sometimes 20. On one day, they killed 500. On Sept. 3, they killed the most – 1,000 people. They fired with machine guns almost continuously for three hours. Then they threw many of the bodies into the river and they were carried out to sea.” [……] Another engineer, Mazedul Haque, 25, vividly remembered the day the Pakistani killed 500 people – July 25 – “by shooting and by cutting their throats with long knives and bayonets. First the soldiers came and told us to come out and watch,” he said. “They said ‘Come and see how we kill your people.’ They were sharpening their knives on the stones. It was their way of torturing us mentally.” […… ]​

Interesting that the Biharis of Khulna have a different tale to tell:

The launching of army action was also followed by another wave of mob violence, in which Bengali mobs slaughtered Biharis or West Pakistanis wherever they held the upper hand, until army units arrived and secured the area.24 Most of the territory remained in rebel hands after March 25 and it took several weeks for the army to regain control.

One such slaughter of a very large number of Bihari men, women and children occurred at the Crescent Jute Mills in Khulna on March 27-28. According to local Bengali workers at the mill, at the time both Bengali and Bihari workers and their families were barricaded inside the mill compound, to prevent the army from entering. Sporadic violence had occurred between the two communities throughout March, and Awami League supporters among the Bengalis had been training and holding parades. A “truce” agreement had been made, but did not hold. Two Bengali policemen who had come by river with their weapons and a few locals who had guns first shot at the Biharis and then the Bengali mob massacred the fleeing Biharis with ‘da’s (cleavers) and other weapons. The bodies were dumped in the river.25 Similar killings of non-Bengalis by Bengalis from late March to late April are also reported in many other parts of the province and a vicious cycle of Bengali-Bihari ethnic violence continued even after Bangladesh’s independence.26

All the evidence now indicates that the killings were on wider scale and more sadistic than foreign newsmen and other independent observers had earlier thought. According to confirmed reports, the Pakistani troops in nearly every sector kept Bengali women as sexual slaves, often making them remain naked continuously in their bunkers. After the Pakistanis surrendered on Dec. 16, the mutilated bodies of many of these women were found. Other independent reports established that the Pakistanis also killed many, if not most, of the Indian soldiers they took prisoner. In these cases, too, bodies were mutilated. […….] The minority Hindu community was a special target of the Moslem Pakistani Army. [……] The yellow “H” that the Pakistanis painted on doors of Hindu homes and shops are still there…[……]

What confirmed reports? Would you mind providing them, since that is the crux of my argument, that many of these claims don't have verifiable supporting evidence. No doubt killings occurred, as did rape and torture, but there is nothing to indicate genocide or a systematic policy of atrocities.

These reporters were of course biased and fools. These silly men visited the places of crime, interviewed the survivors and the witnesses, who were obviously ‘concocting’ their stories, wasting all their time and energy, when what they should have actually done has been so wisely illustrated by Mr Hamoodur Rahman, and his protégé Ms Bose - visit Pakistan, interview the accused, take them as oracle’s words (why waste time on cross-verification), forget the victims, form opinion in an air-conditioned office and go back home. And bam! you have 'solid' evidence.

Where they resorted to unsubstantiated rhetoric and rubbish, I have clearly pointed out. Whether they were naive bleeding heart fools to not verify the claims they were making, or had agendas is something only they can answer.

I can only point out where their claims lack evidence and substantiation.​

 

[LaBong]

One cannot prove or disprove something that does not exist - i.e. it is a logical fallacy to ask someone to prove a negative - an argument from ignorance or argumentum ad ignoratium. It is up to the individual claiming the existence of something or the occurrence of some event (existence of God or genocide) to prove that the event occurred.

It is therefore up to you to prove your claims, not to me to disprove something that I believe did not happen.

Your believe is not a matter of concern here, the term Genocide is used by International Commission of Jurists in the context of killing of Bengali Hindus/Muslims from April, 1971 onwards, and widely accepted by rest of the world.

It is you who cited supposed compensation demand for a particular number of people as a credible source of number of people killed, thus no genocide occurred(which necessarily is Affirming the consequent, ie. compensation for a particular number of people is taken as total number of people killed), and now trying to manoeuvre yourself by raising the proverbial straw man and jumping up and down on it by begging the question.

Yet the HRC analyzed field reports from military units charged with eliminating the insurgency to come up with casualty figures that match Mujib's own numbers. They based their estimate on evidence, not speculation and unverified reports.

And they deemed to be as verified source despite no cross-verification or interviewing the victims!

They reached consensus that the death toll was much lower than is traditionally reported, and that there needs to be joint effort to understand the events in 1971 i.e the existing reports and claims are inaccurate.

They claimed Mujib's speech was mistranslated to 3 million instead of 300,000, not that the death toll was 300,000.

When they say existing report and claims are inaccurate they as well put HR commission report in the list.

Mujib's speech is irrelevant as I never used it as a source, but it proves the official number quoted by Mujib(even if we believe it as 300,000) is much much higher than HR Commission.

The only number based on verifiable reports and evidence.

Number based on PA troopers testimony without any cross-verification or interviewing the actual victims.

It is not about sources, but the methodology used by sources to come with the estimates. The HR commission and the Bangladesh commission used actual evidence - field reports from military units, interviews and claims by family members - that is verifiable evidence.

You have yet to show me what methodology any of your sources used to come up with the figures they claim, despite repeated requests to do so.

STATISTICS OF PAKISTAN'S DEMOCIDE

After a well organized military buildup in East Pakistan the military launched its campaign. No more than 267 days later they had succeeded in killing perhaps 1,500,000 people, created 10,000,000 refugees who had fled to India, provoked a war with India, incited a counter-genocide of 150,000 non-Bengalis, and lost East Pakistan.

This democide is listed in Table 8.1 (lines 26 to 30), which gives an overview of Pakistan's war-dead and democide from 1958 to 1987, the period over which Pakistan has had authoritarian rule, usually military governments. There have been periods without martial law, constitutions have been drawn up, and elections have been held. But these were hardly open and fair, democratic rights and liberties were still absent, and the military still largely controlled major policy from behind the scenes. In Table 8.2 I detail the sources and calculations for the 1971 West Pakistan genocide.

Table 8.1 lists several estimates of other democide during the period of military rule (lines 26-30). It also gives the population figures and final democide rates (lines 82 to 92). I calculate the latter for Pakistan as a whole (lines 84 to 85), East Pakistan (line 88), and for the Awami League in East Pakistan (line 91). Although it would be useful to calculate how the proportion of the different ethnic or religious groups were killed, such as the Hindus or Biharis, there is not enough information in the sources for me to determine a reasonably credible figure.

Turning now to Table 8.2, it begins with estimates of war-dead (lines 1 to 21). While the estimates for the largely military war-dead in the Indo-Pakistan War are reasonable, given the size of the forces and the rapidity of the Indian advance (the war was over in two-weeks), some of those for the civil war or military dead must include democide as well. The Mukti Bahini guerrilla forces numbered about 100,000, the Pakistan army about the same. Some estimates give the civil war or overall military death toll as equal to or even two times the combined armed forces involved (lines 14, 15, 19, and 20). This is not credible, even considering that many civilians were caught up in the war and guerrillas were rapidly replaced by volunteers when they were killed. Accordingly, I have consolidated the civil war estimates at a much more sensible level (line 16) and summed this (line 21) with that for those killed in the Indo-Pakistan War, ignoring the two overly inflated military dead estimates (lines 19 and 20).

In the table I next list a variety of democide estimates (lines 23 to 158). Some of these have to be read carefully. There were two major democides in East Pakistan, one of the Hindu and Moslem Bengalis by Pakistan; the other of the non-Bengalis (largely Urdu speaking Biharis) by the Bengalis. Estimates often do not indicate whether they cover both democides, although the source and context of an estimate may suggest that it is only for that by the Pakistan army. Moreover, some overall estimates may also include combat deaths. With this in mind, I have used various subclassifications for the estimates, including putting those that may include combat deaths under a war and democide heading (lines 170 to 178).

The sources give a number of estimates covering only part of the democide period (lines 47 to 55). I have proportionally projected these to the whole period of nine months [(9 x estimate)/(months covered by estimate)], except for two estimates that are for two months (lines 53 and 53a). Their result would have been 4,500,000 killed, obviously much too high. In any case, these I simply and conservatively tripled to cover the whole period. Regardless, the resulting low and high values (line 56) do not depend on them. The mid-value, however, is the average of all the projected estimates.

Malnutrition, disease, and exposure deaths among the refugees constituted democide. These deaths resulted directly from these pitiful people, largely Hindus, fleeing for their lives before the murderous Pakistan Army. In the table (lines 59 to 62) I give some clearly incomplete estimates of these deaths. They are low enough that I can assume they are included in the estimates of the overall democide.

Turning now to the overall estimates of the Pakistan democide (lines 65 to 79), there are two that are clearly excessively low or high (lines 65 and 79) and that I ignore in the consolidation (line 80). While any leader's admission that his country killed 50,000 people is to confess to a terrible crime, some estimate this number were killed in the first two days of massacres in Dacca alone (line 31). Casting out the unique estimate of 8,000,000 dead hardly need be defended.

Beneath the consolidated overall toll I show my calculation from the partial estimates (line 81). These are rather close. Consolidating both ranges, I give a final estimate of Pakistan's democide to be 300,000 to 3,000,000, or a prudent 1,500,000 (line 82).

Then there is Bengali massacres of non-Bengalis, primarily the Biharis (lines 84 to 158). How much of this was democide (intentional killing by government or its agents) is a question. In this part of the world there is a history of ethnic communal violence and massacres between Hindu and *******, and Biharis and Bengalis. However, for the reasons given in Death By Government[1] I will treat these massacres as democide.

The first set of estimates (line 86 to 93) cover only part of the period. And these cannot be projected to cover the whole period, since most of the killing took place in the first two months. Accordingly I simply consolidate them into a minimum of 50,000. Note that two of the lowest estimates are limited in place (lines 86 and 87) and to a body count (line 86).

Many of those who collaborated with the Pakistan Army were killed by the Awami League and its supporters during the civil war and after. Only one estimate is available of this number (line 97), which seems very low given the deep hatred on both sides and the pervasive killing. Accordingly, I give an estimated low of 5,000 murdered (line 99). This is probably very conservative, but I do not have enough information to estimate how much to increase it.

A number of estimates of specific massacres are listed by town, city, or district (lines 102 to 152). Most of these come directly from or are based on the reports of survivors. Some of these are from different sources apparently covering the same massacre (e.g., lines 105 and 106); the great difference in the estimated number of victims is a warning as to how seriously to take them. Since all are from two sources, I summed the estimates for each source (lines 153 and 154), and will use these sums below to derive an overall democide (lines 164 and 165).

There are two overall estimates (lines 157 and 158). One of 500,000 dead is an "impression" Aziz got from interviewing hundreds of repatriates who survived the massacres (line 157). This is my high for the two estimates (line 159).

I can now put together the various estimates of the Bengali--Awami League--democide (lines 162 to 166). Consolidating these, I get a range of 50,000 to 500,000 killed, more likely 150,000.

Finally we can turn to the overall results. First are those estimates in the sources that appear to be covering both war and democide dead (lines 171 to 178), which I consolidate (line 179). Then, we have the various subtotals arrived at previously, which I can now bring together (lines 182 to 184). From these I calculate the total democide (185) and the sum of this and the war-dead figures (186). Then for comparison I show the consolidated total previously determined from the estimates (line 187). The two are close enough such that I can take the sum total (line 186) as the final total (line 188) for this period. Note that its low is lower and its high higher than the estimated total (line 187). I cannot average the two mid-values or take the lower one from the estimate total, because then the subtotals (lines 182 to 184) would not add up to the final total. Were the mid-values radically different, I would have to readjust my previous consolidations and calculation (such as for lines 21 and 167), but the difference does not justify that here.


Table 8.1

Table 8.2

 

[Pagla Dashu]

I am commenting only on the portion your comment which appears to be another of your lame attempt to justify the brutality of the ‘courageous’ PA. The rest of it is usual tripe that genocide deniers usually indulge in.

BTW, this is the same author who also stated that “It speaks volumes for the discipline of the West Pakistan army,
that its officers were able to keep the soldiers in check during what was to them a nightmare of 25 days.”

So since we both agree on the credibility of the source, I assume this ends the refusal on your part to believe that the East Pakistani insurgents/terrorists had engaged in widespread atrocities and violence against the West Pakistani civilians and military and eventually led to the military crackdown by the Pakistani Army to quell the violence and terrorism.

Taking something out of context appears to be your forte and in that you seem to be fast becoming Ms Bose’s able disciple. The army was called into the barrack on 3 March, 1971 and there they stayed till the midnight of 25 March, 1971. That is a vital information that Ms Bose forgot to give you in that article from which you have quoted the above. It is, I believe, easy to maintain discipline in barracks than when deployed in civilian area. It is, I also believe, to be a tad difficult to attack PA personnel in their barracks, by mob armed with, in our oracles’ words, ‘bamboo sticks and iron rods’. The Bengalis at that time were following a civil disobedience movement in the lines of Gandhi. Non-cooperation with the existing government formed the basis of this disobedience as was breaking the curfew laws and ‘blockade by Awami League supporters, so that fresh rations and other civilian supplies were prevented from reaching them’. The ‘nightmare’ of 25 days refer to and is the context of this tumultuous political situation, which you have conveniently concluded to be ‘widespread atrocities and violence against the West Pakistani civilians and military’. ICJ (International Commission of Jurists), while acknowledging atrocities committed by the Bengalis, had this to say about the situation in Bangladesh before 25 March (incidentally, even ICJ had analysed the entire period as pre 25 March and post 25 March):

‘As from March 3, the army were ordered to return to their cantonments and remained there until March 25. The Pakistan authorities say that their purpose was to avoid further clashes during the period of negotiation. Some have suggested that the army were holding their fire until they were ready to strike, but this seems unlikely as few, if any, units were flown into East Pakistan between 4 and 25 March. Whatever the reason for the withdrawal, it had the effect of keeping down the violence in a period of extreme tension.

Apart from some serious riots in Chittagong on and after the night of 3 March, and some less severe incidents on the same day at Jessore and Khulna, there was remarkably little communal violence during the hartal. The events at Chittagong on the night of 3/4 March are described as follow in the Pakistan White Paper:

'At Chittagong, violent mobs led by Awami League storm troopers attacked the Wireless Colony and several other localities, committing wanton acts of loot, arson, killing and rape. In one locality (Ferozeshah Colony), 700 houses were set on fire and their inmates including men, women and children were burnt to death. Those who tried to flee, were either killed or seriously wounded. Apart from those burnt alive, whose bodies were found later, over 300 persons were killed or wounded on 3 and 4 March.'​

According to information received from foreign nationals in Chittagong, which is believed to be reliable, the incident began when Bengali demonstrators passed in procession through Bihari areas in order to make the Biharis keep to the hartal. The demonstrators were fired upon by Biharis, and a serious riot followed in which people were killed on both sides and a substantial number of Bihari houses were burnt. The number killed on both sides may have reached 200. It is to be noted that by giving a joint estimate of 300 for killed and wounded, the White Paper does not give any estimate of the number of deaths. The rioting continued sporadically for a number of days until order was restored by the Awami League on orders from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

[……]

Gradually the shops, banks and offices began to open again [comment: 7 March onwards]. Some acts of violence did of course occur but, contrary to the contention of the Pakistan Government in their White Paper, the Awami League leaders were in general successful in maintaining the non-violent character of the resistance.

[……]

We do not suggest that there were no other acts of violence during this period. There is evidence to show that attacks were made on non-Bengalis in Rangpur during the week ending March 13, and at Saidpur on March 24, during which shops and properties were burnt and a number of people killed. But considering the state of tension which prevailed, the extent of the violence was surprisingly restricted.’

Source

One more comment about the Khulna incident that you have quoted from Ms Bose’s article, without attributing it to her. Sydney H. Schanberg had provided a summary of events that had happened in Khulna during the entire period from March to December, while Ms Bose has narrated one incident. But as usual you have exempted her from your high standard of substantiation.

 

[Rafi]

Blah blah blah, there was no genocide, no one cares, all our soldiers are back home with their families, there is no international commission in the Hague trying to bring to justice said soldiers.

Definition of genocide is to attempt to wipe out a whole set of people, indian lies have been caught, only indians care about this - no one else does.

Ms Bose - has busted the contention that the Pakistani Army Troopers systematically murdered civilians, she and we acknowledge that during a vicious counter insurgency operation many atrocities were carried out by both sides.

 

[LaBong]

Various newspaper report and other sources regarding the number of people killed and displaced.

 

[Rafi]

Various newspaper report and other sources regarding the number of people killed and displaced.

You can yap, and cut and paste as much as you like, no one in the world believes those figures, it a closed, period

Ms Bose an intellectual of international renown has categorically proved that there was no mass killing of civilians, she has effectively proved the brave Pakistan Army is not guilty of indian assertions.

END OF STORY

---------- Post added at 07:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:30 PM ----------

Blah blah blah, there was no genocide, no one cares, all our soldiers are back home with their families, there is no international commission in the Hague trying to bring to justice said soldiers.

Definition of genocide is to attempt to wipe out a whole set of people, indian lies have been caught, only indians care about this - no one else does.

Ms Bose - has busted the contention that the Pakistani Army Troopers systematically murdered civilians, she and we acknowledge that during a vicious counter insurgency operation many atrocities were carried out by both sides.

 

[Rafi]

Flocci non faccio, In Vino Veritas.

au revoir

 

[GUNNER]

What happened in East Pakistan in 1971 was wrong and should not have happened. It was the sort of inhumanity that subcontinent had witnessed once before, during partition. And like partition, both sides killed. As someone pointed out earlier, there were men in uniform who put the namy of army to shame and there were those who upheld it despite witnessing acts of barbarity. But, logically, the state of that time must take the most blame. But, there was no genocide as some indian friends are tirelessly proclaiming. A fact which is even recognized by some notable Bangladeshi scholars.


On topic though, there is this one incident highlighting the courage which was displayed by Pakistani soldiery at the eatern front despite heavy odds against them. I'm sure many have read this, but this is for those who have not.


At Jamalpur, near Dhaka, the Indian Brigadier, Hardit Singh Kler, surrounded a Pakistani unit led by Lt Col Ahmed Sultan. On 10 December the two officers exchanged letters. The first, written by the Indian Brigadier, was taken across the frontline by an elderly man who delivered it by hand

"To,
The Commander Jamalpur Garrison

I am directed to inform you that your garrison has been cut off from all sides and you have no escape route available to you. One brigade with full compliment of artillery has already been built up and another will be striking by morning. In addition you have been given a foretaste of a small element of our air force with a lot more to come. The siituation as far as you are concerned is hopeless. your higher commanders have already ditched you.
I expect your reply before 6.30 p.m. today failing which I will be constrained to deliver the final blow for which purpose 40 sorties of MIGs have been alloted to me.
In this morning's action the prisoners captured by us have given your strength and dispositions, and are well looked after.
The treatment I expect to be given to the civil messenger should be according to a gentlemanly code of honour and no harm should come to him.
An immediate reply is solicited.

Brigadier HS Kler. Comd."



The reply was sent a few hours later:



"Dear Brig,
Hope this finds you in high spirits. Your letter asking us to surrender has been received. I want to tell you that the fighting you have seen so far is very little, in fact the fighting has not even started. So let us stop negotiating and start the fight.
40 sorties, I may point out, are inadequate. Ask for many more. Your point about treating your messenger well was superfluous. It shows how you under-estimate my boys. I hope he liked his tea.
Give my love to the Muktis [Mukti Bahini were the Bangladeshi guerrillas fighting against the Pakistan Army]. Let me see you with a sten in your hand next time instead of the pen you seem to have such mastery over.
Now get on and fight.

Yours sincerely

Commander Jamalppur Fortress.
(Lt. Colonel Ahmed Sultan)"

 

[LaBong]

But, there was no genocide as some indian friends are tirelessly proclaiming. A fact which is even recognized by some notable Bangladeshi scholars.

I have been trying to refrain from painting it with religious colour so far, but International Commission of Jurists actually say, it was an attempt of genocide on Hindus in East Pakistan.