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INTRODUCTION
Due to a number of reasons Pakistan's relations with many countries of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) do not get proper attention at home and abroad. Besides, politico-diplomatic establishment and academic community, national and international media too do not give due importance to Pakistan's relations with other South Asian countries namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Discussion of Pakistan-Bangladesh relations in the media is often prompted by some unhappy and negative developments. In recent past Bangladesh's decision to go ahead with the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Molla, for his involvement in war crimes of 1971, vitiated the environment. Arrested in August 2010, Molla was tried in a special court known as the International Crimes Tribunals (ICT) which found him guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.1 On prosecution's appeal, Supreme Court of Bangladesh overruled ICT's decision and awarded death sentence to Molla who was later sent to gallows and hanged till death on 12 December 2013 in Dhaka Central Jail.2 There was hue and cry in Pakistan over his hanging. Pakistan's National Assembly on 16 December 2013 passed a resolution condemning the execution of Molla.3 Speaking in the National Assembly, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan said that Molla was innocent and charges against him were false,4 while the Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan stated that "the whole nation is feeling sad over this tragic incident. A person who was the flagbearer of a united Pakistan was executed through judicial murder."5 On 17 December 2013, Bangladesh summoned Pakistan's High Commissioner in Dhaka and sought an explanation from him. Bangladesh's foreign ministry strongly protested against the resolution and issued a statement saying that Molla's trial and punishment was an internal affair of Bangladesh and the resolution adopted by National Assembly of Pakistan was uncalled for.6 This explains that even after more than four decades, the ghost of 1971 Liberation War still haunts the relationship between the two countries.
Pakistan's relations with Bangladesh4 are important and deserve an in-depth analysis. Scholarship, though thin and dated, on PakistanBangladesh relations suggests that there exists a large amount of goodwill for each other among the people on either side which could possibly be used to develop a multifaceted and mutually beneficial...