What followed was not a conventional military operation. It was a campaign of terror.
Dhaka became the first killing field. Pakistani troops entered Dhaka University, shelled student dormitories, and hunted down students, professors and intellectuals. They attacked Rajarbagh Police Lines, where Bengali police personnel tried to resist, and struck Pilkhana, targeting members of the East Pakistan Rifles. Civilians were gunned down in neighbourhoods across the capital as fires lit up the night and bodies piled up in the streets.
In his message, Rahman said Pakistani occupation forces “indiscriminately opened fire on teachers, intellectuals and innocent civilians”, underscoring Bangladesh’s long-held position that the violence was not random wartime brutality but a deliberate attempt to decapitate the Bengali nation.
That view is deeply rooted in Bangladesh’s national memory. For decades, the events of March 25 have been remembered as the opening act of a wider campaign of extermination carried out by the Pakistan Army and its local collaborators during the nine-month Liberation War. Bangladesh has consistently maintained that the killings, rapes, arson and systematic targeting of civilians in 1971 amounted to genocide — a characterisation that remains central to its diplomatic and moral campaign for international recognition.
The prime minister’s message also pointed to another enduring truth of that night: Bangladesh did not submit quietly.
It recalled how members of the 8th East Bengal Regiment in Chattogram mounted armed resistance after the crackdown began, helping transform grief and shock into rebellion. What Pakistan intended as a final act of domination instead ignited a war of liberation.
Rahman’s message urged younger generations to learn the history of March 25 and preserve the ideals for which the country fought — equality, dignity and justice. But beneath the language of tribute lies a harder accusation that still shadows South Asian politics more than five decades later: Pakistan has never fully answered for the crimes committed in 1971.
That unresolved history remained a wound in Bangladesh’s political consciousness. Each year, as March 25 returns, so does the same demand – not only for remembrance but also for truth.
For Bangladesh, Genocide Day is not just about mourning the dead. It is about naming the perpetrators, preserving the historical record, and resisting every attempt to blur the line between victim and aggressor.
And this year’s message makes one point unmistakably clear: the bloodshed of 1971 was not an unfortunate byproduct of conflict. It was a calculated slaughter, and Bangladesh has no intention of allowing the world to forget who carried it out.
