Pakistani forces massacre over 200 civilians, mostly Bengali Hindus, in the Bagbati massacre.
Bagbati massacre (Bengali: ) refers to the killings of more than 200 unarmed Bengali by the Al Badar, Pakistan Army, Razakars and Peace Committee, in the Bagbati Union of Sirajganj sub-division in the erstwhile district of greater Pabna in May 1971. After the massacre the bodies were buried or dumped in wells.
Bengali Hindus (Bengali: বাঙ্গালী হিন্দু/বাঙালি হিন্দু, romanized: Bāṅgālī Hindu/Bāṅāli Hindu) are an ethnoreligious population who make up the majority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jharkhand, and Assam's Barak Valley region. In Bangladesh, they form the largest minority. They are adherents of Hinduism and are native to the Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. Bengali Hindus speak Bengali, which belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and adhere to Shaktism (majority, the Kalikula tradition) or Vaishnavism (minority, Gaudiya Vaishnavism and Vaishnava-Sahajiya) of their native religion Hinduism with some regional deities. There are significant numbers of Bengali-speaking Hindus in different Indian states. According to the census in 1881, 12.81 percent of Bengali Hindus belonged to the upper castes.Around the 8th century, the Bengali language branched off from Magadhi Prakrit, a derivative of Sanskrit that was prevalent in the eastern region of the Indian Subcontinent at that time. During the Sena period (11th – 12th century) the Bengali culture developed into a distinct culture, within the civilisation. Bengali Hindus were at the forefront of the Bengal Renaissance in the 19th century, the Bengal region was noted for its participation in the struggle for independence from the British rule. At the time of the independence of India in 1947, the province of Bengal was partitioned between India and East Pakistan, part of the Muslim-majority state of Pakistan. Millions of Bengali Hindus numbering around 25,19,557 (1941–1951) have migrated from East Bengal (later Bangladesh) and settled in West Bengal and other states of India. The migration continued in waves through the fifties and sixties, especially during the 1950 East Pakistan riots in which estimated 4.5 million Hindus migrated to India and during 1964 East-Pakistan riots, an estimated 135,000 Hindus migrated to India The massacre in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 led to exodus of millions of Hindus to India.