Dhaka: Hitting out at Pakistan for its denial of committing war crimes and atrocities during the 1971 Liberation War, Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Tuesday said it is a fact that Pakistani forces had carried genocide and atrocities.

BNP spokesman Asaduzzaman Ripon also said Pakistan will not be able to hide the truth, no matter what it is saying now.

As reporters sought his comment over the issue at a press briefing at BNP’s central office in Dhaka, Ripon said, ‘I want to say very briefly that Pakistani forces had committed genocide and unleashed atrocities. It won’t be possible to hush up the facts.’

Earlier on Monday, Pakistan summoned Bangladesh’s acting High Commissioner in Islamabad.

Later in a statement, Pakistan Foreign Ministry said, ‘Pakistan also rejected insinuation of complicity in committing crimes or war atrocities. Nothing could be further from the truth.’

At the press briefing, Ripon alleged that human rights are now being violated in the country in many ways, badly denting the country’s image, reports a local news agency.  

He said even the European Parliament and the United Nations have expressed deep concern over the deteriorating human rights condition in Bangladesh.

‘We’ve seen in the newspapers that the government in response to EU’s statement over human rights violation said it’s ‘very disturbed’. It’s not a matter of getting disturbed. The government should address the problems and upholds human rights instead of coming up with sharp reactions to the concerns of our international friends,’ he observed.

Ripon, also a BNP international affairs secretary, condemned the Foreign Ministry’s statement over the EU’s concern over human right situation in Bangladesh.

He alleged that BNP leader Ramzan Ali in Meherpur was subjected to extrajudicial killing by law enforcers on Monday in the name of ‘so-called’ arms recovery drive.

The BNP spokesman demeaned a judicial investigation into all the incidents of extrajudicial killings, including that of Ramjan Ali.  ‘We denounce the Ramzan’s killing.’

‘The extrajudicial killings are taken place in various forms. We’ve seen on a TV scroll that a municipality polls aspirant’s body was found hanging from a tree. Our party thinks any kind of extrajudicial killing should be stopped immediately.’