BANGLADESH NEWS
n Bangladesh’s history, indeed in the dark tales of time, the night of
March 25, 1971 will remain noted for the ferocity with which the
Pakistan army went after 75 million unarmed Bangalees of what had till
then been Pakistan’s eastern province. It was a night when duplicity
came full circle — from the military junta headed by General Yahya Khan,
from his political accomplice Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
On the pretext of negotiations with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on the issue of a transfer of power to the elected representatives of the people, the regime increased the strength of the army, in ammunition as well as manpower over a period of ten days. The eventual objective, as was revealed in the hour or so that remained before the day would pass into the next, was a crushing of Bangalee nationalism.
All through the day, the Awami League team to the tripartite talks involving the junta, the People’s Party and itself waited for a response to its latest proposals on a constitutional settlement from the regime. A spokesman of the junta had earlier promised to call the Awami League leadership, ostensibly to set up another meeting. The call never came.
As dusk fell, rumours began to abound about imminent military action against the province. For his part, Bangabandhu advised his party colleagues and everyone else who went to see him at his residence at 32 Dhanmondi to leave the city. He made it clear, though, that he was going to stay, for if he did not, the army would raze Dhaka to the ground. In the event, they were to do that bad job anyway.
At 7:30 in the evening, President Yahya Khan boarded a Pakistan International Airlines flight in absolute secrecy and took off for Karachi. Before stealthily going out of Dhaka, he instructed the army high command to commence operations against the Bangalees, but only after he had landed in Karachi. This message was passed on by General Tikka Khan, martial law administrator of East Pakistan, to Maj Gen Khadem Hossain Raja. “Khadem, it’s tonight,” said Tikka, referring to what would infamously become known as Operation Searchlight.
At 11:00pm, army units fanned out in different directions across the city. One headed for Dhaka University, where soldiers swooped on Jagannath Hall and the homes of teachers, shooting their way in and killing everyone they came across.
Another made its way to Dhanmondi, the clear objective being to take Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman into custody. Other units busied themselves destroying the Kali Mandir in the centre of the Race Course and the Central Shaheed Minar. Troops also went out in search of a number of senior Awami League leaders, almost all of whom escaped capture.
Contingents also went to the Rajarbagh police headquarters and the East Pakistan Rifles in Pilkhana.
As March 25 gave way to March 26, Dhaka was on fire. ZA Bhutto, from his suite in the Intercontinental Hotel, watched the offices of the radical pro-Bangalee nationalist newspaper The People burn. In Dhanmondi, Bangabandhu declared the independence of Bangladesh through wireless, a message that was soon passed on to MA Hannan, a prominent Awami League leader of Chittagong. Bangabandhu’s declaration read:
“This may be my last message. From today Bangladesh is independent. I call upon the people of Bangladesh, wherever you might be and with whatever you have, to resist the army of occupation to the last. Your fight must go on until the last soldier of the Pakistan occupation army is expelled from the soil of Bangladesh. Final victory is ours.”
Minutes after he made the declaration, Bangabandhu was arrested by the Pakistan army and driven away, to what was then an under-construction national assembly building in the Second Capital area (today’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar). He was then moved to Adamjee College in the cantonment, where he spent the night, before being shifted to Flagstaff House. After three days there, he was flown to West Pakistan and put in solitary confinement in Mianwali jail.
The night between March 25 and March 26 was given over to unmitigated bloodletting by the Pakistan army. In that single night and well into the morning of March 27, the soldiers killed and pillaged. Thousands were to die.
Among those murdered were such respected academics as GC Dev Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta, badly wounded, would die three days later. Students at Jagannath Hall were killed and their bodies, at the orders of the soldiers, were dumped into a mass grave on the premises of the hall by their fellow students. And then those students too were shot. Bodies of Bangalees — rickshaw pullers, pedestrians and others — lay sprawled all over the city.
Terror was writ large across the land.
On the pretext of negotiations with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on the issue of a transfer of power to the elected representatives of the people, the regime increased the strength of the army, in ammunition as well as manpower over a period of ten days. The eventual objective, as was revealed in the hour or so that remained before the day would pass into the next, was a crushing of Bangalee nationalism.
All through the day, the Awami League team to the tripartite talks involving the junta, the People’s Party and itself waited for a response to its latest proposals on a constitutional settlement from the regime. A spokesman of the junta had earlier promised to call the Awami League leadership, ostensibly to set up another meeting. The call never came.
As dusk fell, rumours began to abound about imminent military action against the province. For his part, Bangabandhu advised his party colleagues and everyone else who went to see him at his residence at 32 Dhanmondi to leave the city. He made it clear, though, that he was going to stay, for if he did not, the army would raze Dhaka to the ground. In the event, they were to do that bad job anyway.
At 7:30 in the evening, President Yahya Khan boarded a Pakistan International Airlines flight in absolute secrecy and took off for Karachi. Before stealthily going out of Dhaka, he instructed the army high command to commence operations against the Bangalees, but only after he had landed in Karachi. This message was passed on by General Tikka Khan, martial law administrator of East Pakistan, to Maj Gen Khadem Hossain Raja. “Khadem, it’s tonight,” said Tikka, referring to what would infamously become known as Operation Searchlight.
At 11:00pm, army units fanned out in different directions across the city. One headed for Dhaka University, where soldiers swooped on Jagannath Hall and the homes of teachers, shooting their way in and killing everyone they came across.
Another made its way to Dhanmondi, the clear objective being to take Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman into custody. Other units busied themselves destroying the Kali Mandir in the centre of the Race Course and the Central Shaheed Minar. Troops also went out in search of a number of senior Awami League leaders, almost all of whom escaped capture.
Contingents also went to the Rajarbagh police headquarters and the East Pakistan Rifles in Pilkhana.
As March 25 gave way to March 26, Dhaka was on fire. ZA Bhutto, from his suite in the Intercontinental Hotel, watched the offices of the radical pro-Bangalee nationalist newspaper The People burn. In Dhanmondi, Bangabandhu declared the independence of Bangladesh through wireless, a message that was soon passed on to MA Hannan, a prominent Awami League leader of Chittagong. Bangabandhu’s declaration read:
“This may be my last message. From today Bangladesh is independent. I call upon the people of Bangladesh, wherever you might be and with whatever you have, to resist the army of occupation to the last. Your fight must go on until the last soldier of the Pakistan occupation army is expelled from the soil of Bangladesh. Final victory is ours.”
Minutes after he made the declaration, Bangabandhu was arrested by the Pakistan army and driven away, to what was then an under-construction national assembly building in the Second Capital area (today’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar). He was then moved to Adamjee College in the cantonment, where he spent the night, before being shifted to Flagstaff House. After three days there, he was flown to West Pakistan and put in solitary confinement in Mianwali jail.
The night between March 25 and March 26 was given over to unmitigated bloodletting by the Pakistan army. In that single night and well into the morning of March 27, the soldiers killed and pillaged. Thousands were to die.
Among those murdered were such respected academics as GC Dev Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta, badly wounded, would die three days later. Students at Jagannath Hall were killed and their bodies, at the orders of the soldiers, were dumped into a mass grave on the premises of the hall by their fellow students. And then those students too were shot. Bodies of Bangalees — rickshaw pullers, pedestrians and others — lay sprawled all over the city.
Terror was writ large across the land.
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