A court in Bangladesh has found a British man guilty of contempt for challenging the official death toll from the 1971 war of independence.
Judges said a 2011 blog post by David Bergman deliberately distorted history.
He was ordered to pay a fine of $65 (£40). If he failed to pay that, he would be imprisoned for seven days.
Officials say three million people died in the bloody war of independence with Pakistan. Mr Bergman said there was no evidence to support that.
After nine months of internal strife and a Pakistani military crackdown against Bangladeshi separatists, the intervention of India in the war was swift, brutal and decisive. It brought the conflict to an end in just 13 days.
The defeat of the Pakistani army on 16 December 1971 was a triumph for India and the Bengali insurgents it had assisted.
There are different estimates for the number of people killed.
The Bangladeshi government has consistently said three million died, but others, including Mr Bergman, argue that figure is too high and unverifiable.
Source: BBC
Did Bangladesh government ever take a count (or estimate) of how many people died in the war? It was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who made the mistake in 1972 while traveling from Pakistan via London. He asked a prominent journalist in London; “how many people were killed”. The journalist told the Sheikh; about 3 lac people were killed during the war. When the Sheikh was interviewed by David Frost, he said 3 Million (instead of 3 lacs – apparently not knowing the difference between 3 million to 3 lacs) people were killed. It was purely lack of sheikh’s educational background. He did not know the difference between 3 lacs and 3 million which is ten times higher. Till date, our government kept saying 3 million despite there were lots of studies done and the estimate seems to be around 200,000 to 300,000. CIA estimate indicates 250,000 people killed. Like everything else, we Bangladeshis use history to our political advantage. No one seems to be interested in the true history. Awami League is very good at lies about freedom fighters. Jugglers, singers, artists and radio hosts are mostly Awami Leaguers. AL consider them as freedom fighters simply because they moved to West Bengal during the war. The real people who fought the war remain unrecognized by AL leadership. Even they do not give much hoot about Tajuddin and Maulana Bhasani. To them, Ziaur Rahman was simply a paid soldier and does not deserve to be a decorated freedom fighter – they would go as far as calling him anti-liberation traitor. Also it is an irony that, no one cared to count how many Urdu speaking people were killed during and after the war. There properties were looted by Awami League goons. It is about time to write the true history whether people like it or not.