Dhaka: The Bangladesh government on Sunday announced it would form a panel to investigate war crimes allegedly perpetrated by Pakistani occupation forces and their local agents 38 years ago.
"We will form a probe committee at an inter-ministry meeting scheduled for Wednesday," State Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Quamrul Islam told a press briefing after a meeting of senior ministers and the UN' representative to Bangladesh.
Islam described the decision for an investigation as a fresh step towards bringing suspected war criminals to justice after nearly four decades of liberation.
UN representative Renata Lok Dessallien, meanwhile, said: "We have proposed bringing specialists here so that the trial process meets international standards. The experts will share their experiences to avoid mistakes."
War crimes trials were a complex issue, she added.
Earlier, the government had said the war crimes trials would be prosecuted under Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunals Act of 1973.
It had also barred suspected war criminals from leaving the country.
In late January, parliament approved a resolution seeking the speedy prosecution of war criminals in line with the ruling party's electoral promise.
According to historians, some three million unarmed people were killed during Bangladesh's war of independence against Pakistani forces in 1971.
Around 200,000 women were raped and tens of thousands of homes were torched by Pakistani forces and their local collaborators.
An early initiative to prosecute war crimes was called off after the 1975 political changeover following the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of Bangladesh's independence.
The Bangladesh Sector Commander Forum, a group of 1971 war veterans, revealed last year that 11,000 indicted war criminals were released from jails a few months after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's assassination on the night of August 14, 1975.
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