1971: Martyred Intellectuals’ Day in Bangladesh
December 14th, 2009 Headsman
This date’s observance marks the systematic execution by (West) Pakistani forces of the intellectual class of East Pakistan at the end of the civil war which would detach the east as the independent nation Bangladesh — an unavenged war crime as cynical as it was brutal.
Executed intellectuals in the Dhaka Rayerbazar, 1971.
This was not a single discrete massacre, but a continuing policy during the March-December 1971 war. December 14, just two days before the Pakistani army surrendered, was the peak date of a dreadful endgame paroxysm that saw hundreds of scholars, teachers, lawyers, doctors, artists, writers, engineers, and the like rounded up and summarily executed in a bid to decapitate the new Bengali state’s intelligentsia.
Though the martyrs were subsequently venerated in Bangladesh, the higher-stakes regional geopolitics have always made effective redress a nonstarter.
Also On This Date
Possibly Related Executions
- 1918: Tsar Nicholas II and his family
- 1871: The Paris Commune falls
- 1942: The village of Lidice, for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
Entry Filed under: 20th Century, Artists, Bangladesh, Borderline "Executions", Death Penalty, Doctors, Execution, Famous, History, Innocent Bystanders, Intellectuals, Lawyers, Martyrs, Mass Executions, Mature Content, No Formal Charge, Occupation and Colonialism, Pakistan, Popular Culture, Power, Shot, Summary Executions, Wartime Executions
Tags: 1970s, 1971, december 14, dhaka, holidays, rayer bazar, rayerbazar
January 28th, 2010 at 12:15 am
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