Pakistan has returned remains of a Bangladeshi pilot who was killed 35 years ago while trying to escape across India to then-East Pakistan to join the civil war that led to the creation of Bangladesh.
Flight Lieutenant Motiur Rahman died in August 1971 after a fighter plane he hijacked from a Karachi airbase crashed near the Pakistan-Indian border. He was buried in then-West Pakistan.
Rahman was posthumously awarded Bangladesh's highest award, Bir Shrestha. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia received his flag-draped coffin at Dhaka airport late Saturday. He was re-buried on Sunday in Dhaka with full state honors.
Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation on December 16, 1971, when Pakistan surrendered to combined Bangladeshi and Indian forces.