Bangladesh authorities summoned Pakistan's acting High Commissioner Rifat Iqbal at the foreign office here on Sunday and was told by a senior foreign ministry official that Dhaka at the same time ``would never forget the sufferings the nation went through in 1971'', the official BSS news agency said. ``If Pakistan seeks forgiveness, we may forgive. But we can never forget the sufferings that we went through and the sacrifices we made for our liberation,'' a senior foreign ministry official was quoted by the agency as telling the acting Pakistan High Commissioner. The agency said action was in response to a complaint by Pakistan about ``anti-Pakistan propaganda'' being carried out by Bangladesh in recent months.

BSS said that on April 23 Bangladesh High Commissioner to Pakistan Q A M A Rahim had beensummoned by Tariq Altaf, Pakistan's additional foreign secretary (Asia and the Pacific), who told him the figures on the number of killed and women raped by Pakistani troops during the liberation war were ``historically inaccurate''.

The Pakistani official had drawn Rahim's attention to some of the articles in supplements published in many countries on the occasion of the Independence and National Day of Bangladesh on March 26, which spoke of untold sufferings of the people of the then East Pakistan during the liberation war. The agency said the Pakistani diplomat was told in ``clear terms that it is an established fact that 200,000 women were dishonoured and three million people were killed in Bangladesh by Pakistani occupation forces during the war of liberation in 1971.

''Reports said the diplomat was also told that ``liberation war touched the lives of almost all the Bangladeshis and it was part of our glorious history. The atrocities inflicted on the Bangladeshis in 1971 wasunprecedented.

''Observers here, however, see in the government statement an apparent softening of the present stance of Dhaka over the issue given its earlier remarks on the matter.

Earlier on January 27, Bangladesh had called for unconditional apology from Pakistan for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians at the hands of the Pakistani army during the liberation war. A foreign ministry spokesman had then asked for an apology for mass killings, rape and other atrocities allegedly committed by the Pakistani Army.

The statement followed press reports that Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had promised to punish the people responsible for the 1971 tragedy which resulted in the birth of Bangladesh.