Although Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar claimed in Dhaka that the 1971 genocide issue was resolved through the Shimla Agreement and later by General Pervez Musharraf’s visit to Bangladesh, the reality tells a different story.
The Shimla Agreement, signed on July 2, 1972, by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was a bilateral arrangement aimed at stabilising India-Pakistan relations after the Liberation War of Bangladesh.
Pakistan had just suffered a crushing military defeat, and Bangladesh emerged as an independent state after immense sacrifice. Yet, Bangladesh was excluded from the accord, as it was framed solely between India and Pakistan.
The agreement committed the two countries to resolve disputes bilaterally, respect each other’s sovereignty, refrain from force, and normalise ties. It also transformed the 1971 ceasefire line in Jammu and Kashmir into the Line of Control, mandated troop withdrawals, and facilitated the release of prisoners of war.
For India, it locked in the strategic gains of its wartime victory; for Pakistan, it helped restore diplomatic footing and secure the return of captured soldiers and territory.
But for Bangladesh, the Shimla Agreement offered nothing.
The core issues born out of the 1971 war– recognition of the genocide, repatriation of stranded Pakistanis, and compensation for devastation– were simply left out. The accord neither acknowledged the atrocities committed nor addressed Dhaka’s demand for justice.
Instead, it served the interests of India and Pakistan while sidelining the new nation that had endured the bloodshed.
This is why Dhaka views Dar’s claim as misleading.
Pakistan may consider the matter “settled” under Shimla and Musharraf’s statements, but Bangladesh has never accepted this narrative. For Dhaka, true reconciliation cannot come without an explicit acknowledgment of the genocide and a formal apology, something the Shimla Agreement never provided.
After the bilateral meeting with his Pakistani counterpart, Ishaq Dar in Dhaka on Sunday, Bangladesh Foreign Adviser Touhid Hossain also said: Bangladesh expects Pakistan to apologise for the genocide, repatriate those still stranded, and provide compensation for the damages caused during the war.
By invoking Shimla, Pakistan attempts to close a chapter that remains painfully open in Bangladesh.
The accord may have shaped the diplomatic architecture of South Asia, but it failed to address the moral and historical reckoning that still defines Bangladesh-Pakistan relations more than five decades later.
Adviser Touhid Hossain, however, said: “Relations with Pakistan had been held back in the past. We are now trying to normalise them.”
