The main phase of Operation Searchlight ended with the fall of the last major town in Bengali hands in mid-May . The operation also began the 1971 Bangladesh genocide . These systematic killings served only to enrage the Bengalis , which ultimately resulted in the secession of East Pakistan later in the same year . Bangladeshi media and reference books in English have published casualty figures which vary greatly , from 5,000 – 35,000 in Dacca , and 200,000 – 3,000,000 for Bangladesh as a whole , although independent researchers , including the British Medical Journal , have put forward the figure ranging from between 125,000 and 505,000 . American political scientist Rudolph Rummel puts total deaths at 1.5 million . The atrocities have been referred to as acts of genocide
1971 Bangladesh genocide
1971 Bangladesh genocide
Bangladesh Liberation War