On December 3, 1971, General Yahya Khan was rushing out of the presidency on an important mission. He had to watch the flight of Pakistani
planes going to attack India. His jeep was heading towards the gate of the
Presidency when a big vulture blocked his way. General Hameed, sitting in the
driving seat, blew the horn but did not touch the vulture. General Yahya
himself got out of the car and tried to remove it with his stick but he still
did not fly. A financier came running from the garden of the Presidency and
with great difficulty removed the vulture from the path. General Yahya Khan
left for his destination.
But the war of 1971 was actually started by India in June 1971. First,
it started bombing various parts of East Pakistan with artillery. By the end of
November, India had occupied 3,000 square miles of East Pakistan. A fierce
clash took place in the Jessore sector on November 19 and on November 21, two
Pakistani planes were also destroyed in the same battle. On November 27, while
General Niazi was visiting the front lines, he stopped and ate chicken.
General Niazi raised his head from the plate of chicken taka and
said that a full-fledged war has already started for me. Due to the Indian
advance, General Yahya also decided to open a front against India from West
Pakistan. In fact, the Pakistan Army's defense doctrine was that if India
attacked East Pakistan, Pakistan would respond to it on the West Front. December
3 was the day of the attack, the day of judgment and on that day General Yahya
himself arrived to watch the flight of Pakistani fighter jets. On December 3,
1971, at 4.30 pm, President Yahya Khan declared war on India on the radio. The
Pakistani pilots who listened to General Yahya's speech were overwhelmed.
Slogans of Allah Akbar were raised at the airbases and fighter jets
began to touch the heights of the air. The Pakistan Air Force targeted 11
Indian airbases, including Amritsar, Pathankot, Jodhpur, Ambala and Agra. But
in this attack of Pakistan Air Force only one Indian plane crashed in Faridkot
and the runways of some Indian airbases became useless for a few hours. Indian
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was probably waiting for this opportunity.
He declared open war on Pakistan. The total number of Pakistan Army
in East Pakistan at that time was about 45,000 with the help of 73,000
volunteers. They included Al-Badr, a Jamaat-e-Islami volunteer, and the Shams
Force, a group of students from religious schools. These volunteers were given
only 2 weeks of combat training and they also had mostly old rifles with which
the Indian Army could not compete. The real war was to be fought by only 45,000
regular troops,
while India had a force of 2.5 to 300,000, comprising the regular
army, border security forces, and 100,000 Mukti Bahini. India also had the upper
hand in arms. Pakistani tanks were not capable of fighting at night. Indian
tanks were equipped with night vision equipment. Compared to Pakistan's 14 old
Saber fighter jets, India had more than 150 modern aircraft, including the
Supersonic MiG-20. Similarly, the Pakistan Navy had only four large boats in
East Pakistan which was completely useless compared to the Indian Navy's
aircraft carrier Vikrant and modern frigates.
In addition, India had the support of a large section of the
Bengali population in East Pakistan. So now the Pakistani forces were
completely surrounded by the enemy on three sides, about 1600 km away from West
Pakistan. Now they had to face the entire Indian war machinery and the Bengali
Mukti Bahini without the Air Force and Navy. That is why when India launched
the invasion, there was a catastrophe. Due to heavy bombardment by the Indian
Air Force, the Pakistan Navy became useless in just 24 hours.
On the morning of December 6, Indian fighter jets destroyed the
runway of Dhaka Airport, rendering the Pakistan Air Force useless. But before
it was useless, the Pakistan Air Force had given the enemy a very tough time. In
Dogfights, only 2 Pakistan Air Force planes were destroyed while 13 Indian
planes were destroyed. On the ground front, the Indian Army achieved many
successes with the help of the Mukti Bahini.
Since the people of Mukti Bahini were familiar with the secrets of
East Pakistan, with their help, the Indian army began to surround the Pak army
everywhere. First India occupied Jessore and then it started moving forward. Indian
troops used to torture civilians in the areas they used to occupy, one of which
is the video of the incident you are watching. Pakistani soldiers were
constantly retreating but there were many Pakistani soldiers who preferred to
sacrifice their lives instead of retreating.
One important thing to keep in mind about East Pakistan is that the
Pakistani commanders thought that tanks could not come here. This was because
there were rivers in this area, some areas were swampy or there was a dense
forest. So when India started deploying tanks on a large scale in East Pakistan,
the Pakistani commanders did not immediately believe that this had happened. One
such incident took place at a grazing area near Kohli.
A platoon commander told his officer wirelessly that enemy tanks
were advancing. The officer said, "Fools, where did the tanks come
from?" You must have seen the buffalo in the evening. The platoon
commander said, "Sir, you are right, but the cannons are also fitted on
these buffaloes and these cannons are destroying our fronts." Near the
same place, Major Muhammad Akram fought the Indian army with a company, but on
December 8, he was martyred by artillery fire.
After his martyrdom, he was awarded the Haider Medal for his
bravery. These sacrifices and war were still going on but General Niazi had
given up. By December 7, the fifth day of the regular war, the Pakistan Army
had been defeated in most parts of East Pakistan. In these circumstances, on
the evening of December 7, the Governor of East Pakistan, AM Malik, met General
Niazi and tried to reassure him, but General Niazi began to weep helplessly.
With General Niazi's cry, the governor understood that the
situation was out of control. So they started sending messages to President
General Yahya Khan for a ceasefire but got no response. Meanwhile, General
Niazi had also locked himself in his room. One day when Siddique Salik went to
his room, General Niazi was holding his head in both hands. He said,
"Thank you seeker, you are not a general today." His irritability was
so great that once the BBC reported that General Niazi had left his army and
fled to West Pakistan, General Niazi became angry.
He went to the Intercontinental Hotel in Dhaka to look for the BBC
correspondent and told people that he was still here and that he would never
leave his soldiers. He later met with a BBC correspondent and said: He used to
talk in those days which meant that he would fight till the end. On that day,
General Niazi was telling the media that he would not surrender. At the United
Nations, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, then Pakistan's deputy prime minister, was also
talking about continuing the war.
But despite all this, Pakistan was losing not only on the eastern
front but also on the western front. The Indian Navy had surrounded the
Pakistani port. India was winning on the ground front as well as had occupied
many areas of West Pakistan. The Hamoodur Rehman Commission report also
recommended action against First Corps chief Lt. Gen. Irshad Ahmad Khan. Because
they had handed over 500 villages in the area of Shakargarh Tehsil near Sialkot
to the enemy without a fight.
President General Yahya was also not interested in East Pakistan. In
fact, he even said that I can do more for East Pakistan. In these
circumstances, allies like the United States and China also suffered from their
own compulsions and did not come to the aid of Pakistan. Meanwhile, Indian
troops had reached near the city of Dhaka. Now they had to build temporary
bridges over the three largest rivers near Dhaka, the Jumna, the Meghna, and the
Brahmaputra.
In a week they could have captured Dhaka. Because there was no
regular army of Pakistan in Dhaka. It was scattered on other fronts. On the
orders of General Niazi, General Jamshed formed a force of about five and a
half thousand volunteers in chaos. But this force was much weaker than the
Indian regular army. The competition was futile. Meanwhile, on December 14,
General Niazi received a telegram from General Yahya Khan which changed the
situation.
In this telegram, General Yahya had told General Niazi that now you
are at a stage where no further resistance is possible and no benefit can be
gained from this resistance. Rather, it will cause further loss of life and
property. In these circumstances, you must do everything possible for the
security of the Armed Forces, the people of West Pakistan and other loyalists. As
soon as General Niazi received this message, he sent a draft ceasefire offer to
Indian Army Chief General Manik Shaw through the US Consul General in Dhaka.
The draft called for a ceasefire to protect soldiers and civilians.
When the draft was received by General Manik Shaw, he agreed to a ceasefire but
made it a condition that the Pakistan Army surrender first. Manik Shah's
message to General Niazi was an extraordinary one. He could not have made such
a big decision alone. So he asked Rawalpindi for an answer. On the evening of
December 15, a reply came from Rawalpindi, but it did not call for open
surrender, nor did it prevent General Niazi from ceasefiring.
In response, it was written that I advise you to make a ceasefire
on these terms, that is, on the terms of protection of soldiers and civilians, but
this ceasefire will only be like the arrangement of local commanders. If the
agreement goes against Pakistan's ongoing international peace efforts, it will
be considered null and void. In the reply received from Rawalpindi, it was not
made clear what was the response to General Manik Shaw's surrender condition.
However, as soon as General Niazi received this message, he started
issuing ceasefire orders. However, General Niazi is credited with being able to
escape to Burma in an Army Aviation helicopter if he wanted to. But they sent
28 families of soldiers to Burma in three helicopters but did not go. On the
morning of December 16, a small contingent of the Indian Army's 101
Communication Zone reached near the Mirpur Bridge.
There Indian Major General Nagra wrote a letter to General Niazi. He
wrote, "Dear Abdullah, I am on the Mirpur bridge. Send your
representative." General Amir Khan Niazi received the letter at 9 o'clock
in the morning. At that time General Farman and Rear Admiral Sharif were also
with him. When General Niazi saw the letter, General Farman asked him if there
were any reserve troops left. General Niazi remained silent.
General Niazi looked at General Jamshed, the bodyguard of Dhaka. He
shook his head in denial. Now General Farman and Admiral Sharif agreed and said
if this is the case then go and do what he says Indian General Nagra. Thus
Major General Nagra was allowed to enter Dhaka victoriously. Interestingly,
General Niazi told a different story in his post-war statement to the Hamoodur
Rehman Commission. He said he had 26,400 troops in Dhaka and could have stopped
the Indian army for another two weeks if he had wanted to.
If this statement of General Niazi is true and the story of 5,000
weak forces are wrong, then all the blame for surrender falls on General Niazi
himself. However, shortly after Major General Nagra's arrival in Dhaka, the
head of the Indian Eastern Command, Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Arora, also
reached Dhaka. General Niazi saluted General Arora and shook his hand. From
there, the two reached General Ramna Race Course Ground, Dhaka, where General
Niazi signed the surrender document. And the war ended. He also presented his
revolver to General Arora, which is still preserved in the Indian Museum. But
to save the rest of the Pakistani troops from the Mukti Bahini retaliation,
the Indian Army allowed them to keep their weapons with them till December 19.
These weapons were later withdrawn from them anyway, the report
said. If Niazi had given his life, he
would have become immortal in history and would be remembered in future
generations as a great hero and martyr. But it seems that they were discouraged
after losing their defensive fortifications in the beginning. There is a
misconception in East Pakistan that those who surrendered were all young men of
the Pakistani army. It is not.
Because when the war started, there were only 45,000 Pakistani
soldiers in East Pakistan. The rest were civil armed forces, police, and
government employees. As we have said, the total number of regular and
volunteer forces in Pakistan was around 118,000. So 90,000 of them were
arrested. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post. It
is a fact of history that the Pakistan Army was defeated in the war of 1971 but
in circumstances in which victory was impossible. Sharmila Bose, a
Bengali-American writer, writes that the Pakistan Army had performed
surprisingly well, even in the most difficult of circumstances, inside East
Pakistan.
As soon as India occupied East Pakistan, the Mukti Bahini started
massacring non-Bengalis and people collaborating with the Pakistan Army. Unarmed
people would be stabbed to death in front of a crowd. Meanwhile, the Indian
army occupying East Pakistan had also started looting openly. Apart from
military equipment, food, all the machinery of Bengali factories, and many
valuables of homes were also looted and sent to India.
On the other hand, after the surrender of the Pakistan Army in East
Pakistan, the government of General Yahya also came to an end. On December 20,
1971, General Yahya Khan was replaced by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto as President of
Pakistan and Chief Martial Law Administrator. On December 27, 1971, a convoy of
vehicles stopped outside a bungalow near Rawalpindi's Chaklala Airport. President
of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto got out of a car and entered the bungalow.
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was present in a room of the bungalow who was
transferred from jail here. Bhutto called on Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and told him
that now I am the President of Pakistan. Bhutto avoided this and asked Sheikh
Mujib if he would like to keep Bangladesh, which is now obviously going to be
an independent country, in a loose or weak confederation with Pakistan. Sheikh
Mujib, in response to Bhutto's suggestion, asked him to wait.
On January 7, Bhutto came to meet Sheikh Mujib again and reiterated
the word confederation. Sheikh Mujib then asked them to wait. On the morning of
January 8, President Bhutto said goodbye to Sheikh Mujib from Chaklala Airbase and
Sheikh Mujib flew to London from where he was to go to Dhaka. Sheikh Mujib
reached Rawalpindi from London and Delhi from London where he was welcomed by Indian
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with his entire cabinet.
His words were such that this relationship is now broken forever, now
you live in peace, and let us live in peace too. In 1972, when summer was at its
peak, Pakistani President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto arrived in Shimla to meet Indian
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. We showed you that India had won the war at the
negotiating table during the Tashkent Agreement after the war of 1965. But
surprisingly, in Shimla, Bhutto changed history, which is also acknowledged by
the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
So this is a picture which is a sign of Pakistan's defeat in the
war of 1971 and a sign of hatred and enmity between the two countries. This
second picture is a sign that defeat can be washed away at the negotiating
table.
Bhutto, Yahiya and Sheikh Mujeeb
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