Former Pakistan Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan while addressing the nation on Saturday said people should understand the atrocities committed in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

“Today, we should understand what happened in East Pakistan and the atrocities committed. The party there which won a majority and should have been Prime Minister, was denied their right,” the PTI chief said. “We lost half the country. We cannot imagine the damage done to the country. Because people make decisions behind closed doors, a handful of people that don’t know how the rest of the world is operating, make decisions,” Khan said.

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The PTI chief further said: “They don’t even allow people to assess the damage done because of their decisions. When the Hamoodur Commission Report was written, it was never published and after 25 years, it was published in India. This is not how counties function.”

Khan said he wants to remind people about East Pakistan. He said it happened during his lifetime, in March 1971.

“I went to play a match in East Pakistan against the U-19 team. Ours was the last flight out of East Pakistan. I still remember the hate people had towards East Pakistan. We were ignorant of what was happening because the media was controlled as it is today. The difference is, we, have social media today. And they shut down social media as well,” Khan said.

“Because they wanted to promote their own narrative, that those protesting are rioters, they shut down social media, Facebook, Twitter, internet services. We can’t imagine the damage to the country’s economy. So, this is what happened in East Pakistan,” he added.

On March 25, 1971, Pakistan Army launched ‘Operation Searchlight’, wherein a planned military operation was carried out by the Pakistani Army and its military which deliberately harmed hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi citizens.

According to The Friday Times, the 1971 genocide was destructive to Pakistan’s reputation. Pakistan’s generals however still don’t recognize the mass massacre they sponsored 50 years ago. West Pakistan under the leadership of General Tikka Khan and General Khan Niazi, was responsible for the deaths of over three million Bengalis, and the rape of some 400,000 women across the region.