‘Mass Killings, Forced Expulsion’: US Lawmaker Seeks Genocide Tag For 1971 Pak Atrocities Against Hindus

Closing Updated:March 22, 2026, 09:40 IST

The decision fascinated with the events of March 25, 1971, when Pakistan’s protection power launched a crackdown in then East Pakistan below an operation called Operation Searchlight.

A US lawmaker has equipped a choice in the House of Representatives searching for to recognise the atrocities dedicated by the Pakistani Navy and its allies towards Bengali Hindus in March 1971 as “battle crimes and genocide”.

Greg Landsman, a Democratic Congressman from Ohio, moved the resolution in the US House of Representatives on Friday. It has now been sent to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for further review, news agency PTI reported.

The resolution focused on the events of March 25, 1971, when Pakistan’s military launched a crackdown in then East Pakistan under an operation called Operation Searchlight. During this period, thousands of civilians, including Bengali Hindus, were killed.

As per the resolution, on the night of March 25, 1971, the Government of Pakistan imprisoned Sheikh Mujibur Rahman— the founding father of Bangladesh and the most prominent voice of Bengali self-determination — and simultaneously unleashed its military across East Pakistan in a coordinated campaign of violence inspired by the ideology of Jamaat-e-Islami.

The resolution also referred to the “Blood Telegram” despatched by Archer Blood, the US Consul General in Dhaka on the time. In his message to Washington, he described the violence as “selective genocide” and criticised the US government for not taking action.

“Moreover, with support of Pak military, non-Bengali Muslims are systematically attacking poor people’s quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus,” he wrote.

Landsman illustrious that on April 6, 1971, in what change into identified as the ‘‘Blood Telegram’’, Consul General Blood despatched an objection to the legit United States Government silence on the battle, signed by 20 contributors of the Consulate General Dacca.

“But now we bear chosen now to no longer intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the Awami battle, whereby sadly the overworked term genocide is appropriate, is purely an internal topic of a sovereign relate,” the then diplomat said in the telegram.

The resolution stated that the Pakistani Army and its allies, including Jamaat-e-Islami, carried out widespread killings, targeted minorities, and committed serious human rights abuses, including violence against women.

It urged the House of Representatives to condemn the atrocities committed by the Armed Forces of Pakistan against the people of Bangladesh, which was carved out of Pakistan after Indo-Pak war of 1971.

The resolution “recognises that while the Pakistani Army and its Islamist allies indiscriminately mass-murdered ethnic Bengalis regardless of their religion and gender, killed their political leaders, intellectuals, professionals, and students, and forced tens of thousands of women to serve as their sex slaves.”

“They particularly centered the non secular minority Hindus for extermination through mass slaughtering, gangrape, conversion, and forcible expulsion,” it added.

Noting that entire ethnic groups or religious communities are not responsible for the crimes committed by their members, the resolution calls on the President of the United States to recognise the atrocities committed against ethnic Bengali Hindus by the Armed Forces of Pakistan during 1971 and their allies in the Jamaat-e-Islami as crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

It also urged the US President to acknowledge the suffering of Bengali Hindus and other victims of the 1971 violence.

What Was Operation Searchlight?

Operation Searchlight was a military crackdown launched by the Pakistani Army in March 1971 against the civilian population of East Pakistan — the territory that would, by December of that year, become Bangladesh.

The operation was planned and ordered by Pakistan’s military leaders under General Yahya Khan, who came to power after a coup in 1969. Its aim was to stop the growing Bengali nationalist movement, which had gained strong support after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League won a major election victory in December 1970. However, the Pakistani military and its allies in West Pakistan refused to accept this result.

(With inputs from agencies)

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