Dhaka university cuts ties with all Pakistani varsities

Dhaka: Bangladesh's premier Dhaka University on Monday scrapped ties with all Pakistani varsities amid continued outrage over Islamabad's reactions following execution of two top 1971 war crimes convicts.

"The (university) Syndicate has decided to sever all sorts of relations with Pakistani universities," Vice Chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddique told reporters after a special meeting of the university's highest policy-making body.

Siddique, also the chairman of the syndicate, said the meeting was convened coinciding with the Martyred Intellectuals Day only to discuss the university's academic ties with Pakistan.

Many of the assassinated 1971 intelligentsias were senior teachers of Dhaka University and majority of them were massacred towards the fag end of the liberation war.

Civil society figures and mainstream media also sought to sever ties with Pakistan as anger mounted in Bangladesh over Islamabad's reaction earlier this month against execution of the two war crimes convicts.

Key opposition outside parliament BNP's stalwart Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami's secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed were executed last month for committing crimes against humanity.

Siddique had earlier joined war veterans in voicing the demand for Islamabad's "blatant inference in our internal affairs" as Bangladesh began the month-long celebration marking the 44th anniversary of December 16, 1971 Victory Day.

According to official figures, three million people were killed during the nine-month long Liberation War against Pakistan which launched a crackdown on unarmed Bengalis on March 25, 1971.