1964 East Pakistan riots

1964 East Pakistan Ethnic Cleansing
Rioters attacking the Dhakeshwari Temple in Dhaka
Location	East Pakistan
Date	2 January 1964 – 28 March 1964
Target	Bengali Hindus, Garos
Attack type	Massacre, Forced conversion, Plunder, Arson, Abduction and Rape
Perpetrators	East Pakistan Police, Ansars, Army, East-Pakistan Rifles, Local Muslims
Motive	1963 Hazratbal incident

The 1964 East Pakistan riots refer to the massacre and ethnic cleansing of Bengali Hindus from East Pakistan in the wake of an alleged theft of what was believed to be the Prophet's hair from the Hazratbal shrine in Jammu and Kashmir in India. The salient feature of the pogroms was its urban nature and selective targeting of Bengali Hindu owned industries and merchant establishments in the capital city of Dhaka. This resulted in unending waves of Bengali Hindu refugees in neighbouring West Bengal. The refugee rehabilitation became a national problem in India, and hundreds of refugees were resettled in Dandakaranya region of Odisha & Madhya Pradesh (now in Chhattisgarh).