Bangladesh to try Pakistanis

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32945, 17 June 1972, Page 15

Bangladesh to try Pakistanis

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) DACCA, June 16. India has agreed to hand over 150 Pakistani prisoners-of-war to Bangladesh for interrogation and trial on charges of genocide, according to a Foreign Ministry official in Dacca.

Lieutenant-General A. K. Niazi, the former military commander in East Pakistan, would be among the 150, the official said. General (“Tiger”) Niazi, was the Pakistani commander who surrendered his forces to India’s Lieutenant-General

Aurora in Dacca after the war last December. He was taken to Calcutta on December 20, four days after signing the surrender. Preparations were being made to lodge General Niazi, and the other prisoners-of-war, in his former operational headquarters in the Kurmitola cantonment, the Dacca official said. The Bangladesh Prime

Minister (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) has estimated that about three million Bengalis were killed after the Pakistan army’s “invasion” of East Pakistan in March of last year, and he has declared that no-one responsible for atrocities in Bangladesh will go unpunished. President Bhutto of Pakistan has said that if Bangladesh puts any Pakistani prisoners on trial for war crimes, it would mean the point of no return in relations between the two countries. In an emotional statement last March, Mr Bhutto declared: *T will not allow a single war trial to take place on the soil of Dacca!”-