Bangladesh Genocide Research Paper

(Jahan) How the Bangladesh Genocide was Committed The Pakistani government started their military attack on Bangladesh on March 25th, 1971. Some of the targets for the attack were the university campus, the police headquarters, and other areas with high Hindu populations (Jahan 254). Those who were in power in Pakistan at the time believed that the intellectuals and the students were the leaders of the Bengali nationalist movement, the main supporters were the Hindus and the urban lumpenproletariat, and that the leaders in any armed struggle could be the Bengali police and army officials (Jahan 54). Hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed by the army operations in the Dhaka, the capital of Bengal, on the university campus, the slums, and the old city where Hindus primarily lived. The news of these killings quickly spread throughout the country. On March 26th, 1971, the independence of Bangladesh was announced over the radio from the city of Chittagong on the account of the Awami League and their leader, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Soon, a resistance was organized in all the cities and towns of the country by the Awami League politicians, Bengali

The first phase targeted young males, while in the second phase women and girls became targeted as the main target of the Pakistani aggression (Jahan 255). The second phase of the war, which lasted from mid-May to September contained more stable planning from both the Bengali nationalists and the Pakistani government. The Bengali nationalists took in over 100,000 young men as freedom fighters and put them through training and eventually launched a guerilla operation inside Bangladesh (Jahan 255). This time, the Pakistani government focused on targeting girls and women terrorizing them by raping them in front of family. The army also ran camps that abducted the women and girls to repeatedly rape and gang-rape them near the army