- India and Bangladesh signed a 25‐year treaty of “friendship, cooperation, and peace” on 19 March 1972, that provides for mutual defense consultations if either is attacked.
- Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, signed the pact at the end of Indira Gandhi’s two-day visit to Bangladesh.
- The treaty declared that if either country is attacked or threatened with attack the two would consult to take appropriate, effective measures to eliminate the threat.
- India and newly independent Bangladesh also agreed not to join any military alliance directed against the other or to permit the use of their territory to threaten the security of the other.
- Climaxing Indira Gandhi’s visit to Dacca, the two Prime Ministers also signed a joint declaration in which India pledged it would “fully cooperate with Bangladesh in bringing those guilty persons to justice who are responsible for the worst genocide in recent times.”
- This referred to proposed trials of Pakistani soldiers and civil servants who have been accused of committing war crimes in Pakistan’s former caster region.
- According to the declaration, both the prime ministers’ extrials will bring the guilty persons to the justice and also bring to the world at large the enormity of the suffering of the people of Bangladesh.
- Twelve Articles were incorporated in the treaty. The term of the treaty expired on 19 March 1997, and none of the contracting parties showed any interest in renewing it.
