AS soon as the trial of war criminals began, questions were raised from different quarters as to how and why the 195 Pakistani soldiers were released in 1974 without any trial. It has also been argued that those 195 Pakistanis were the main war criminals and their release questions the merit of the current trial process.
This article investigates the news reports that were published in international media from December 16, 1971 to April 15, 1974 to understand how and why those 195 Pakistanis were accused and released. It also explores …

PUNJAB Governor Sardar Latif Khosa has ruled out any amendment to the blasphemy law and asserted that no such plan is under consideration by the government. Talking to the media after meeting JI Ameer Syed Munawwar Hasan at Mansoorah on Thursday, Khosa dispelled the impression that the Pakistan Peoples Party was amending the existing blasphemy law. He said the government had no such plan and asserted that the Pakistan Peoples Party would defend the Namoos-e-Risalat till the last drop of blood. He clarified that the fact-finding committee, constituted by President …

A nation busy building the narrative of its birth will exaggerate the aspects of its suffering. Pakistan’s ‘painful birth’ syndrome is enveloped in its story of Partition — when men were slaughtered and women raped. The idea is not only to emphasise the effort it took to create Pakistan but to designate the ‘enemy’ who caused the suffering. Ultimately, the state will need an external enemy to achieve internal unity through projections of threat.
Bangladesh, too, had to have a national narrative of a ‘painful birth’ and Pakistan was clearly the …

KARACHI, Dec 29: A book titled ‘Women, war and the making of Bangladesh — remembering 1971’ by Yasmin Saikia was launched at a local hotel on Thursday evening.

The event featured a simultaneous conversation between Ms Saikia, a professor of history at the Arizona State University, and literary critic Dr Asif Farrukhi.
During the conversation the author discussed her reasons for choosing the war of 1971 in Bangladesh as her subject, and her experiences while interacting with people of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The …

Murtaza Razvi
Posted: Wed Dec 21 2011, 03:22 hrs
December 16 is a day of remorse in Pakistan’s calendar — on that day, 40 winters ago, Pakistani forces surrendered before their Indian counterparts at Dhaka, and Bangladesh was proclaimed by Bengali nationalists in the former East Pakistan, then the country’s majority province. Bangladeshi historians have since termed their struggle against the Pakistan army as the struggle for independence. For all practical purposes, it was so, as the largely non-Bengali, West Pakistan-sourced army stationed in the …

On Tuesday, Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh signed a strategic partnership agreement, the first Afghanistan has signed with any country, as Karzai started a two-day visit to New Delhi.
Under the agreement, India will notably train the Afghan national security forces, with Manmohan Singh saying that “India will stand by the people of Afghanistan as they prepare to assume the responsibility for their governance and security after the withdrawal of international forces in 2014.” Regarding the agreement, the Indian prime minister explained that it “creates an …

মানবজমিন ডেস্ক: বসনিয়াতে যুদ্ধাপরাধ তদন্তকারী আন্তর্জাতিক আদালতে সাবেক আইএসআই প্রধানকে পাঠাতে অস্বীকার করেছে পাকিস্তান। দ্য এক্সপ্রেস ট্রিবিউন পত্রিকা জানিয়েছে, স্বাস্থ্যগত সমস্যাকে কারণ হিসেবে উল্লেখ করে পাকিস্তান সরকার সাবেক আইএসআই প্রধান লেফটেন্যান্ট জেনারেল (অব.) জাভেদ নাসিরকে হেগের আন্তর্জাতিক আদালতে পাঠাতে অস্বীকৃতি জানিয়েছে। জাতিসংঘের নিষেধাজ্ঞা সত্ত্বেও বসনিয়ার মুসলমান যোদ্ধাদেরকে নাসির সহযোগিতা করেছিলেন বলে অভিযোগ ওঠায় ট্রাইব্যুনালের পক্ষ থেকে তাকে আদালতে হাজির হওয়ার নির্দেশ দেয়া হয়েছিল। পাকিস্তান আন্তর্জাতিক আদালতকে জানিয়েছে, সমপ্রতি এক সড়ক দুর্ঘটনার কারণে নাসির স্মৃতি হারিয়ে ফেলেছেন। তাই এ ধরনের কোন তদন্তে তার হাজির হওয়া সম্ভব নয়।

I was in Belgium in December 1971 and had just submitted by Ph.D. thesis when I saw the most painful and humiliating scenes of the surrender of the Pakistan Army in Dacca. To see our officers and jawans with crosses on their backs and their heads shaven being herded like cattle by Indian soldiers being kicked and hit with sticks was such a traumatic scene that I would never forget it my whole life long.
In May 1974 I was working as a Senior Scientist at FDO in Amsterdam and had specialized in …

MONTREAL: Canada said Saturday it had arrested a suspected Pakistani war criminal, the second such arrest made since the government listed 30 foreigners actively sought on Canadian soil.
Arshad Muhammad, 42, was arrested thanks to public tips, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said in a statement.
The Toronto Sun said that Muhammad, who also goes by Certosa Aranci, was arrested after he was recognized in a store in Mississauga, just west of Toronto.
On Friday, authorities said they had arrested former Honduran soldier Cristobal Gonzalez-Ramirez, who …

The last time I took to the pages to Varsity to write about Germaine Greer, it was because, on the grounds of our Union, she had proclaimed that since objectivity and accuracy were inherently male qualities, it was wrong to expect women to perform to the same standard (an opinion she would later amplify in print by adding that “big ideas” were not meant for the fairer sex). Now Ms. Greer is back to inform us that the British Army should not be deployed to Libya because there was …

Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has spent the last few years confined by the Pakistan Army to one of his palatial Islamabad residences where he whiles away his days writing weekly columns in newspapers. This venerable metallurgist, who claims paternity rights over Pakistan’s bomb, says it alone saves Pakistan. In a recent article, he wistfully wrote: “If we had had nuclear capability before 1971, we would not have lost half of our country – present-day Bangladesh – after disgraceful defeat.”
Given that 30,000 nuclear weapons failed to save the Soviet Union from …

ISLAMABAD – Both sides, the Bengalis and the Pakistanis, may hold each other responsible for the events that preceded this day, December 16, exactly 29 years ago. It is the day Pakistan was dismembered, with the East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh since.
But history now has started to get clear as far the hands behind this divide are concerned. It was a bloody and cruel war ignited and led by the Indians, namely then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
The 1971 war saw thousands killed, leaving permanent scars on millions of people in …