The figure of 3 million has become embedded in Bangladeshi culture and literature. Sayyid A. Karim, Bangladesh's first foreign secretary alleges that the source of the figure was "Pravda", the news-arm of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Independent researchers have estimated the death toll to be around 300,000 to 500,000 people while others estimate the casualty figure to be 3 million. The United States intelligence agency, the CIA and the State Department estimated that 200,000 people had been killed in the genocide. According to Sarmila Bose's controversial book "", the number lies somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000. However, her book was the subject of strong criticism by journalists; writer and visual artist Naeem Mohaiemen; Dr. Nayanika Mookherjee, an anthropologist at Durham University; and others. In 1976 the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh undertook a comprehensive population survey in Matlab, Noakhali where a total of 868 excess wartime deaths were recorded; this led to an estimated overall excess number of deaths in the whole of Bangladesh of nearly 500,000. Based on this study, the "British Medical Journal" in 2008, conducted a study by Ziad Obermeyer, Christopher J. L. Murray, and Emmanuela Gakidou which estimated that 125,000–505,000 civilians died as a result of the conflict; the authors note that this is far higher than a previous estimate of 58,000 by Uppsala University and the Peace Research Institute, Oslo. This figure is supported by the statements of Bangladeshi author Ahmed Sharif in 1996, who added that "they kept the truth hidden for getting political advantages". American political scientists Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose give a low-end estimate of 300,000 dead, killed by all parties, and they deny that a genocide occurred, while American political scientist R. J. Rummel estimated that about 1.5 million people were killed in Bangladesh. Indian journalist Nirmal Sen claims that the total number killed was about 250,000 and among them, about 100,000 were Bengalis and the rest were Biharis. Many of those killed were the victims of radical religious paramilitary militias formed by the West Pakistani Army, including the Razakars, Al-Shams and Al-Badr forces. There are many mass graves in Bangladesh, and more are continually being discovered (such as one in an old well near a mosque in Dhaka, located in the Mirpur region of the city, which was discovered in August 1999).