India’s Permanent Representative to the UN called it the “most horrific episode in human history”

As the United Nations marked International Day of Victims of Genocide on Wednesday, India called for paying homage to the three million people killed and hundreds of thousands of women raped by the Pakistan Army and religious militias in the 1971 Liberation War.

Describing it as the "most horrific episode in human history” India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti said in a tweet, "UN International Day of Victims of Genocide on 9 Dec. Let's pay homage to 3 million killed & 200,000 or more women raped in erstwhile East Pakistan by the Pakistan army & religious militias in 1971 in most horrific episode in human history. Never again.”



The 1971 war began after the sudden crackdown at midnight on March 25 that year in erstwhile East Pakistan by Pakistani troops and ended on December 16 as Pakistan conceded defeat and unconditionally surrendered in Dhaka to the allied forces comprising Bengali freedom fighters and the Indian Army.
Bangladesh came into being after Pakistan ceded the territory it earlier controlled.

Officially, three million people were killed during the nine-month-long war.

December 9 is observed as the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and the Prevention of this Crime.

In his message, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said genocide was the most heinous of crimes, encompassing all it touches in a tsunami of hate and destruction.

"We work to prevent genocide and other atrocity crimes — crimes which are sadly still being perpetrated with impunity and no regard for the sanctity of human life," Guterres said.

In 2017, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had said Pakistan's Army had launched a "heinous" military operation in 1971 which triggered a "genocide" during the liberation war, killing three million innocent people.

"In the 1971 war of liberation, we endured an extreme form of genocide. In the nine-month-long war of liberation against Pakistan, three million innocent people were killed and more than 2,00,000 women were violated," Hasina had said.

During a recent meeting with Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh, she had said the country could not forget and forgive the atrocities of 1971.