Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, who was recently released from house arrest in Pakistan, on Saturday, 16 December, said he would avenge the 1971 India-Pakistan war, which created Bangladesh, by liberating Kashmir.
News agency ANI quoted Saeed as saying, “We will avenge creation of Bangladesh by liberating Kashmir.”
Saeed was speaking in Lahore on Vijay Diwas, a day commemorated in India every 16 December to mark the creation of Bangladesh, and victory in the war against Pakistan.
On 16 December this year, Bangladesh honoured 27 Indian war veterans as it celebrated 'Victory Day' marking its emergence as an independent nation.
A 31-gun salute marked the occasion while Bangladesh’s President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina placed wreaths at the National Memorial at suburban Savar in a pre-dawn ceremony, with army bugles playing the Last Post while thousands followed them as the nation paid homage to the 1971 martyrs and heroes.
The war in 1971 began after the sudden crackdown at midnight on 25 March that year in erstwhile East Pakistan by Pakistani troops, and ended on 16 December as Pakistan conceded defeat and unconditionally surrendered in Dhaka to the allied forces comprising Bengali freedom fighters and the Indian Army.
Officially three million people were killed during the nine-month-long war in one of the most heinous acts of genocide by Pakistani troops.
This is not the first time Saeed, who allegedly masterminded the 26/11 Mumbai terror, has shot warnings about ‘liberating Kashmir’. Moments after his release from house arrest on 24 November, he said he will gather people across Pakistan for the "cause of Kashmir" and help the Kashmiris secure "freedom".
The United States, which designated Saeed a ‘global terrorist’ in 2008, has demanded his immediate arrest.
He was released after a Judicial Review Board denied the Pakistan government’s request for an extension to the duration of his house arrest.
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