DHAKA, 17 December 2007 — Bangladesh celebrated the 36th anniversary of independence from Pakistan yesterday, but the powerful Awami League and three other parties boycotted a key event, accusing the government of condoning war criminals.

Previously known as East Pakistan, Bangladesh won independence in 1971 after a nine-month war helped by India in which official records say 3 million people were killed and thousands of women raped.

Since early yesterday, a public holiday, tens of thousands of people streamed to war memorials across the country to pay homage to the war dead.

President Iajuddin Ahmed, senior civil and military officials and members of social, cultural and political groups laid wreaths at a memorial at Savar, 25 km from Dhaka, at dawn, as bugles played the last post.

President Iajuddin and Fakhruddin Ahmed, chief adviser to the caretaker government, issued separate messages on the occasion felicitating the nation and calling for united effort to attain the prime goal of the liberation war through building a happy, rich and self-reliant country. The Awami League and three parties boycotted a reception hosted by President Iajuddin in the evening.

The sector commanders of Bangladesh forces during the 1971 liberation war also stayed away.

“We found that some war criminals (leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami party) were also invited to the reception at Bangabhaban (presidential palace) this evening. So we decided to boycott it,” said Suranjit Sengupta, a senior leader of Awami League yesterday. The Jamaat-e-Islami party is accused of war crimes.

The families of seven dead war heroes demanded that war criminals be put on trial. “No more delay, they should be prosecuted at the earliest so that the souls of the martyred heroes get peace,” the octogenarian mother of war hero Munshi Abdur Rob told reporters at Savar memorial.

The war crime issue resurfaced after senior Jamaat leaders said Bangladesh’s independence war was “a civil war” and that no war crime had been committed on the nation’s soil.

The remarks drew protests from war veterans, former military commanders, families of the war dead and politicians.