Bangladesh 1971: War Crimes,

Genocide and Crimes against Humanity

Did operation Searchlight save Pakistan or destroyed?

Introduction

The genocide committed in Bangladesh in 1971 is widely considered to be one of the worst genocides

in recent history. But this genocide, despite the indiscriminate killings of a huge number of innocent

men, women and children was also very much target oriented. Hence the fact that this military

operation was code-named Operation Search Light is self-explanatory in the definition and the scope

of the operation itself. But this is in no way to imply that because it was a targeted killing, it was any

less than genocide rather on the contrary it was the worst kind of genocide for two very specific

reasons. Firstly, the targets were mostly civilians and secondly although Bengali paramilitary forces

(East Pakistan Rifles) and police were attacked right on the night of March 25 1971 when the

operation started, the attack was an undeclared war on the basis of ethnic identity. Therefore, although

the objectives and operation were well defined and the target of killings and tortures of all degree and

dimensions were preplanned, this in no way reduces the responsibility of causing genocide in

Bangladesh from March 25,1971 till December 16, 1971.It must be remembered that the broader target

was the entire Bengali population in the erstwhile East Pakistan. According to Asia Times, ' at a

meeting of the military top brass Yahya Khan declared," Kill three million of them, the rest will eat of

our hands". Accordingly on the night of 25 March, the Pakistani Army launched Operation Searchlight

to crush Bengali resistance in which Bengali members of military services were disarmed and killed,

students and the intelligentsia systematically liquidated and able-bodied Bengali males just picked up

and gunned down. According to various sources three million people were killed by the Pakistani

Armed Forces and their accomplices in Bangladesh. It was one of the largest genocides in the modern

known history. I must admit that the scope of discussion on this genocide is too wide to be

encompassed in this discussion within this short time. I will, therefore, specifically focus on two

targets of Operation Searchlight namely the students and the women.

Objective behind Operation searchlight:

Their main objective was to destroy the Main head of a country. Thair main target was students,

lawyers, doctors etc. But if we can say their main target, was students. If we take a look into the

making of Bangladesh and the struggle the Bengali nation had to go through soon after the creation of

Pakistan in August 1947, we must say that the students in the erstwhile East Bengal played a vital role.

Whether it was in opposing Muhammad Ali Jinnah's unilateral declaration in March 1948 that "Urdu

and Urdu alone shall be the state language of Pakistan ", or subsequently in demonstrating for making

Did operation Searchlight save Pakistan or destroyed

Emergence of Bangladesh (GEN226)