Bangladesh commemorates 1971 genocide victims with nationwide one-minute blackout

Bangladesh has observed a nationwide one-minute blackout symbolising the darkness of genocide the Pakistani occupation forces plunged the freedom-crazy Bengalis into the night of Mar 25, 1971.

At 9pm on Sunday, the country slipped into darkness for a minute for the first time in commemoration of the victims and in observance of the Genocide Day.

The day preceded the Independence Day on Mar 26.

The power cut was not central; instead, the government urged the people to turn the lights off at 9pm to join the commemoration.

Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee also organised a programme to remember the 1971 victims by standing silently in front of the Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka during the blackout.

Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq lit candles after the blackout at another event in the Officers’ Club. Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam Bhuyian and Cultural Affairs Secretary Md Nasir Uddin Ahmed were also present.

Bangladesh has been demanding that the United Nations declare the day as the World Genocide Day as a sign of protest against the genocides carried out around the globe.

The United Nations, however, in September 2015, recognised Dec 9 as International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and the Prevention of this Crime.

Dec 9 is the anniversary of the adoption of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide or the ‘Genocide Convention’.

This is the second year Bangladesh has observed Genocide Day after parliament last year passed a motion declaring the day as the Genocide Day.

The Pakistan Army swooped down on unarmed Bengalis on the night of Mar 25 in a brutal attempt to crush their struggle for autonomy and freedom.

Codenamed ‘Operation Searchlight’, it carried out genocide in the first hours of that night in Dhaka.

Bengalis retaliated with spectacular resistance and fought for nine months of Liberation War to snatch the victory on Dec 16 when occupying Pakistani forces surrendered to the allied forces backed by India.

Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared independence before being arrested by the Pakistani forces the same night.

Several organisations held events marking the day.  

Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee took out a torch procession from the Shaheed Minar after the blackout.

A group of young people along with the children of martyrs took part in a candlelight vigil organised by the Liberation War Museum.

Md Abdul Hamid from the capital’s Mirpur, who lost his father Abdul Hakim in the Liberation War in 1971, said, “The Biharis inhabited Mirpur. My father worked for the Awami League in the 1970 elections. The Biharis had marked my father and killed him in April 1971.”

Martyred intellectual Prof Abdul Muqtadir’s daughter Elora Muqtadir said, “My father was killed for raising his voice against the suppression by Pakistan.”

Elora was not born when Pakistani soldiers shot Dhaka University geology teacher Prof Muqtadir dead at his Fuller Road home on Mar 26, 1971.

“My mother fell unconscious when she saw my father being shot. They dragged his body and left it at the British Council. My relatives later recovered it and buried him in the graveyard of my maternal grandfather’s family,” she said. 

“They asked my father to surrender and pledge allegiance to Pakistan. They killed him because he did not follow their orders,” she added.