Bangladesh Liberation War

The genocide in Bangladesh began on 26 March 1971 with the launch of Operation Searchlight, as West Pakistan began a military crackdown on the Eastern wing of the nation to suppress Bengali calls for self-determination.During the nine-month-long Bangladesh war for independence, members of the Pakistani military and supporting Islamist militias from Jamaat e Islami killed an estimated up to 3,000,000 people and raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bangladeshi women in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape. These actions against women were supported by Imams and Muslim religious leaders, who declared that Bengali women were 'war booty'. It is estimated that up to 30 million civilians became internally displaced.During the war there was also ethnic violence between Bengalis and Urdu-speaking Biharis.Many thousand non-Bengalis were also killed during the war. There is an academic consensus that the events which took place during the Bangladesh Liberation War constituted a genocide by West Pakistan against the people of Eastern Pakistan.