Begum Naseem Akhter was a central leader of National Awami Party (NAP). She witnessed the genocide committed in Dhaka by Pakistan Army’s Operation Searchlight on 25 March 1971. On hearing the description of the genocide from her, poet Ahmad Salim composed a poem for which he was imprisoned. By the end of March 1971, she was arrested along with her political associates for holding a rally in Mall Road of Lahore in protest of the genocide that started in Bangladesh. During the nine months of the Liberation War, she and her family members were branded as traitors and subjected to humiliation. On 16 December 1971, she visited the Bangladeshi students in Lahore jail, and celebrated Bangladesh’s victory by distributing sweets and chanting ‘Joy Bangla’ slogans. In recognition of the courageous and significant stand she took for the cause of Bangladesh despite being in Pakistan, Begum Naseem Akhter is awarded Friends of Liberation War Honour.