Bangladesh wants UN to declare March 25 as Genocide Day in remembrance of 1971
Bangladesh on Thursday said it would reach out to the UN to declare March 25 as Genocide Day globally, in remembrance of the atrocities carried out by the Pakistan Army on the same day in 1971.
“The letter is ready... it will be sent to the United Nations by this month,” liberation war affairs minister AKM Mozammel Huq told reporters.
“A delegation will go to the UN this month with a proposal to observe March 25 as Genocide Day globally while the foreign ministry, through the Bangladesh embassies and high commissions across the world, will campaign to get support from other countries in favour of our proposal.”
The UN General Assembly in 2015 declared December 9 as the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime.
The minister said no genocide took place on December 9 “but here in Bangladesh we witnessed one in March 25, 1971”.
“So, we will propose the UN to shift the Genocide Day to March 25,” Huq said.
The Bangladesh Parliament earlier this month unanimously adopted a resolution declaring March 25 as the Genocide Day.
The Pakistani army launched their infamous ‘Operation Searchlight’ on March 25 to suppress Bengali people’s calls for self-determination, killing over 20,000 people alone in Dhaka.
Officially three million people were killed in the subsequent nine-month Liberation War.
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