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However, the retired Pakistan army major insists that Bangladesh should also address the issue of attacks by Bengalis on Urdu speakers during the struggle for independence.

We spoke Urdu, we ate our own culture's food, and then I'd go to school.

"We reached the station with great difficulty," he told BBC Urdu, "because we were tired and there were children and women with us."

When Ali awoke from a coma, she could no longer speak English, only her first language, Urdu.

"Everyone was running for their lives," she later told BBC Urdu from a hospital in Islamabad, adding it was "like doomsday or a war".