India, Jan. 25 -- The seeds of communal violence against minorities in Bangladesh were sown long before the era of independent politics. In the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, the fundamentalist forces of Jamaat-e-Islami, along with local collaborators, joined hands with the Pakistan Army to take on the liberation movement. Vigilante groups like Al-Badr and Al-Shams participated in the mass slaughter of civilians, especially the Bengali Hindus, whom they perceived to be the "enemies" of Pakistan and Islam. Entire villages were massacred and women and girls were raped in systematic campaigns of terror. Jamaat-linked forces were implicated in notorious atrocities such as the Char Bhadrasan massacre, where dozens of unarmed Hindu villager...