Violence Against Alleged Collaborators
In 1947, at the time of partition and the establishment of the state of Pakistan, Bihari Muslims, many of whom were fleeing the violence that took place during partition, migrated from India to the newly independent East Pakistan. These Urdu-speaking people held a disproportionate number in the new country's population. Biharis were adverse to the Bengali language movement and the subsequent nationalist movements as they maintained allegiance toward West Pakistani rulers, causing anti-Bihari sentiments among local nationalist Bengalis. B When the war broke out in 1971, the Biharis sided with the Pakistan army. Some of them joined Razakar and Al-Shams militia groups and participated in the persecution and genocide of their Bengali countrymen including the widespread looting of Bengali properties and abetting in other criminal activities against them. R J Rummel estimated that 150,000 non-Bengals were massacred by Awami League aligned militias, with a low estimate of 50,000 and a high estimate of 500,000.
There are many reports of massacres of Biharis and alleged collaborators that took place in the period following the surrender of the Pakistan Army on December 16, 1971. In an incident on December 19, 1971, captured on camera and attended by members of foreign press, Abdul Kader Siddiqui and Mukti Bahini guerrilas under his command bayoneted and shot to death a group of war prisoners accused of belonging to the Razakar paramilitary forces.
Read more about this topic: 1971 Bangladesh Atrocities
Famous quotes containing the words violence and/or alleged:
“A two-parent family based on love and commitment can be a wonderful thing, but historically speaking the “two-parent paradigm” has left an extraordinary amount of room for economic inequality, violence and male dominance.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“Most observers of the French Revolution, especially the clever and noble ones, have explained it as a life-threatening and contagious illness. They have remained standing with the symptoms and have interpreted these in manifold and contrary ways. Some have regarded it as a merely local ill. The most ingenious opponents have pressed for castration. They well noticed that this alleged illness is nothing other than the crisis of beginning puberty.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)