A US-based Bangladeshi orgsation, Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM), held a car rally on Thursday, followed by a protest outside the Pakist Embassy in Washington DC demanding an apology for the 1971 genocide named 'Operation Searchlight'.
The protestors observed 'Genocide Day' recalling the horror of one of the worst genocides in modern history committed by the Pakist occupation army against the unarmed people of Bangladesh on the night of March 25, 1971, and afterwards. At the protest, voices underscored the Global Magnitsky Act and how the US should impose sanctions and confiscate assets of those responsible for the genocide and are freely living in the United States.
The Global Magnitsky Act is a powerful statutory tool enacted by Congress, that gives the White House broad power to sanction foreign officials who are responsible for serious human rights abuses.
Protestors raised flags, held placards and chanted slogans against Pakistan. During the protest outside the Pakist embassy, Priya Saha, Executive Director (HRCBM) and orgser, told that in addition to the apology, the protestors also demand from Pakistan the extradition of 195 Pakist war criminals.
"We demand that Pakistan holds a trial for raping and killing thousands of women and children in 1971," Saha added.
Sheila Jackson Lee, the Democratic Congresswoman who co-chairs the Congressional Pakistan Caucus, in her remarks in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday said that March 25 officially marks the beginning of the genocide in Bangladesh.
"It has been 50 years since the genocide in Bangladesh, and the survivors and their descendants are still fighting for recognition; they are still fighting for an apology from Pakistan, as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh (Sheikh Hasina) formerly asked her Pakist counterpart (Imran Khan) as recently as January of 2021; and they are still fighting for justice and for closure," Lee said in her address.
"We are grateful to Sheila Jackson Lee and her remarks in the House of Representatives on the beginning of the genocide in Bangladesh. We demand the US congress to recognise the Bengali Genocide Day on March 25," another protestor told .
Standing in solidarity with the Bangladeshi diaspora was Zafar Sahito founder of Jeay Sindh Freedom Movement, an exiled leader of Sindh, Pakistan now living in the United States.
"Pakistan is doing the same atrocities and political persecution of the historical Sindhi nation. I think it's the moral duty of the Bangladeshi nation and all civilised nations to support our cause of national freedom from theocratic Pakistan. I appeal to India to also support us as you helped Bangladesh in 1971," Sahito told .
On March 25, 1971, at midnight under the name Operation Searchlight, seen by many as the first step in the Bengali genocide, the Pakistan army allegedly killed about 100,000 Bengalis in a single night.
They targeted academics and scholars, specifically murdering many university students and professors. The protestors say that the goal of the operation was to crush the Bengali nationalist movement through fear - they attacked Pilkhana, Rajarbagh Police Lines, Jagannath Hall, a non-Muslim dormitory of Dhaka University, Iqbal Hall, Sri Ramna Kali Temple and other major institutions.
( With inputs from ANI )
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