NEW DELHI: To commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, officers of Army units that participated in the action will cycle to Dhaka.
The 1971 war was a decisive military act that led to the creation of Bangladesh. India had played a key role in the training of Mukti Bahini. The celebrations come at a time when Pakistan’s relations with India and Bangladesh are at a low point.
An official said the cyclists will enter Bangladesh through Dawki, Meghalaya, in the first week of December and would culminate in Dhaka on December 16 and from there they will cycle towards Calcutta.
Bangladesh commemorates the victory of Allied Forces High Command over the Pakistani forces in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 on December 16. The Army units —14 Punjab, 4/6 Gorkhas, 2 Sikh Li, 22 Rajput etc—fought valiantly alongside the Mukti Bahini for Bangladesh’s liberation.
Last June, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina conveyed her long-pending decision to honour nearly 2,000 Indian soldiers who sacrificed their lives alongside its freedom fighters in the Liberation War. During PM Narandra Modi’s Dhaka visit, Bangladesh had also honoured former PM A B Vajpayee. Last year Bangladesh honoured the Indian war veterans at a grand function spanning several days and they were taken on a tour around the country.
Bangladesh has hung three Jamaat-e-Islami leaders in the last one year for war 1971 crimes, a step that didn’t go down well with Pakistan. The frosty bilateral relations came to the fore when Bangladesh didnt send its minister to attend the SAARC conference in Islamabad in August and later pulled out of the SAARC summit to be organised in Pakistan’s capital city. With Hasina at the helm of affairs, ties between the two countries with a shared history will be further deepened.