#thenewscompany – Law minister Anisul Huq today accused Pakistan of breaching 1974 tripartite agreement by not taking back its stranded citizens, generally dubbed as Biharis, affecting validity of the treaty.
“Under the 1974 agreement, Pakistan was obligated to take back its stranded citizens from Bangladesh. They did not fulfill their obligation over the decades,” Huq told #thenewscompany as approached for comments on the state of the treaty jointly signed by Dhaka, New Delhi and Islamabad.
Bangladesh, he said,on the other hand, complied with the treaty allowing the defeated Pakistani soldiers’ repatriation and in no way breached the agreement by exposing to justice the perpetrators of crimes against humanity who carried out atrocities siding with the Pakistani troops.
He added that according to the principle of law, if any party violates a treaty, its validity comes under question while Islamabad itself “clearly defied” the agreement by refusing to take back their citizens over the decades since it was inked.
Thousands of Urdu-speaking Muslims, who migrated to the then East Pakistan after the 1947 partition, continued to stay in makeshift abodes called Bihari camps in Bangladesh since 1971 and waited for decades to go to Pakistan but the subsequent governments in Islamabad declined to take them.
The law minister’s comments came as Islamabad repeatedly accused Bangladesh of failure to uphold the commitment of “not to proceed with the trials” in line with the 1974 treaty since Dhaka took initiatives to try the 1971 war criminals, among its own nationals.
“As part of the (1974) agreement, the Government of Bangladesh decided not to proceed with the trials as an act of clemency,” the latest such Islamabad statement read after fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami was executed for 1971 war crimes earlier this week when the Pak parliament also took a resolution condemning his hanging.
It added: “His (Nizami’s) only sin was upholding the constitution and laws of Pakistan”. Talking to #thenewscompany earlier state minister for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam said Islamabad’s statement proved it again that Nizami was “one of them (Pakistanis)” and “they could have taken him to Pakistan as a citizen if they are so worried about him”.
He said, the content of Islamabad’s statement cleared that Nizami was a “traitor” by being the chief of the infamous Al-Badr militia force in 1971 as an auxiliary unit of Pakistani troops which was formed even after “independent Bangladesh’s emergence on March 26, 1971 in line with the Proclamation of Independence of the Mujibnagar Government”.
Alam accused Pakistan of “deliberate misinterpretation” as nowhere in the agreement it is mentioned that Bangladesh could not try its nationals who committed crimes against humanity siding with the Pakistan troops during the Liberation War”.