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Leadership could not manage Dhaka crisis: speakers
Leadership could not manage Dhaka crisis: speakers


LAHORE: (Friday, December 16, 2016): Punjab University's Pakistan Study Centre Director Prof Dr Massarrat Abid has said that the leadership failed to handle the situation and could not manage crisis by resolving grievances of the Bengalis. She said the loopholes in Legal Framework Order further aggravated the already spoiled situation. She was addressing a seminar organized on “Fall of Dhaka”.

Dr. Rizwan Ullah Kokab, from GC University, Faisalabad and eminent journalist, author and political and security expert Mr. Murtaza Shibli were the keynote speakers. Dr. Amjad Abbas Magsi conducted the proceedings of the event. In her welcome note, Prof. Dr. Massarrat Abid said that day of 16 December is remembered as a sad day in the history of Pakistan. She threw light by saying that the issue had its roots very deep as it was started after one year of independence. Bengalis complained of being treated by Western wing as a colony. Dr. Rizwan Ullah Kokab in his keynote speech said that 16th December always reminds us multitude lessons. While talking about the reason of fall of Dhaka he said that it was not a sudden event. It has its roots deepened from December 1948. He said that major causes were no share of due power, lack of leadership, mis-management of resources and many mores. He concluded that if there were no public leadership present in the country then such kind of issue can prevail. Mr. Murtaza Shibli in his keynote speech discussed the myths around the official narrative about fall of Dhaka; i.e. a) the numbers – killed or raped, b) the victimhood of Bengalis as the exclusive victims of the Pakistani side, and c) the Indian role both in precipitating the crisis and enhancing the human tragedy that ensued. The claims about 3 million deaths of Bangladeshis and nearly half a million rapes is anything but true. Though these claims are nothing more than mythical fantasies of misplaced nationalism, such assertions have remained largely unquestioned despite a chronic lack of empirical evidence. Just to afford some perspective to such politically loaded declarations is to compare it with the Jewish Holocaust during the World War II that allegedly consumed six million Jews over a seven year period, achieved through a pre-planned process and a dedicated wherewithal sanctioned by the state for the purpose. The question as to how could 34,000 (73,000 or more often quoted in reports is not true) Pakistani army personnel stationed in East Pakistan achieve an annihilation of 3 million people in less than 8 months of the war seems to have been conveniently overlooked. Equally, the various claims of mass rapes of 200,000 – 400,000 women are absolutely implausible. The process that culminated in dismemberment of Pakistan was propelled by a continued failure of civilian and martial-law leadership of Pakistan at the time. However, it is no exaggeration that Bangladesh was a project of the premier Indian intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), and it remains so till this date to perpetuate a pliant Indian client-state as a base to fan hatred against Pakistan on the basis of exaggerated myths about the sufferings of Bengalis and their imagined victimhood in a narrative that forms the mainstay of the current Bangladeshi government to frustrate any process of healing and closure. Faculty members, students of various departments of the Punjab University attended the lecture which was concluded with a lively question-answer session.