Dhaka, East Pakistan (Bangladesh): March 1971
“Teach them a lesson. Teach them hard.” President General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan of Pakistan effortlessly gave this mandate to Lieutenant General Mohammad Tikka Khan at the headquarters of Eastern Command in Dhaka.
It was the evening of March 24, 1971. For Yahya, the cost of human life meant little; he only cared about winning the game. The elite gathering in the Operations Room did not miss the teeth-grinding and fierce voice of the stocky, chain-smoking president. He had just given the go-ahead signal for “Operation Searchlight”, aimed at annihilating the Bengalis in East Pakistan.
Earlier, on February 22, the generals in Islamabad had made the decision. Four additional army divisions were to militarize East Pakistan. By the time Searchlight started, two full divisions–one from Karachi and the other from Quetta–had been airlifted to Dhaka.
“Kill three million of them,” said the president in that meeting, “and the rest will eat out of our hands.” (Please see “Massacre, The Tragedy of Bangladesh and the Phenomenon of Mass Slaughter throughout History”, Robert Payne, (1973) New York: Macmillan.
“We are ready, sir,” said the beak-nosed, poker-faced Tikka, the military governor of the province. “Everything is lined up.” His deputies, Major General Rao Farman Ali, Major General Khadim Hossain Raja and Major General Abu Osman Mitha, nodded in agreement.
“It starts at Zero Hours tomorrow,” ordered the president.
False Talks
President Yahya Khan had been in town for the past ten days, ostensibly to negotiate Pakistan’s future with majority leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, popularly called Sheikh Mujib or simply Mujib. His Awami League won the elections three months earlier. By March 24, the two sides appeared to have agreed on the major issues, and the charismatic, larger-than-life Bengali politician was optimistic. He was at the doorstep of the office of the next leader of Pakistan.
That same afternoon, the public saw nothing unusual when the presidential motorcade left the downtown Governor’s House, now Bangabhaban, headed north to the military base just twenty minutes away, and returned shortly afterwards. The official explanation was that the president went for tea with his colleagues. What people did not know was that the president was not inside the returning Flag Car.
Behind the façade of serious dialogue, ominous but fast-moving activities were underway within the military. Planes and ships loaded with troops and concealed armaments landed daily in Dhaka and Chittagong. On March 24, generals took helicopter rides to deliver Top Secret instructions to local commanders in Chittagong, Comilla, Jessore, Sylhet, Rajshahi and Rangpur.
In a one-on-one meeting between Yahya and Mujib scheduled for March 25, the president was to make an important announcement with regard to the transfer of power to the elected representatives. An upbeat Mujib looked forward to his moment of glory.
The provincial capital was unusually calm on March 25 in an otherwise volatile political environment. Mujib waited all day for the promised meeting and declaration. Most Bengalis became skeptical by now and suspicious of the military’s intentions. Top aides unsuccessfully tried to convince Mujib not to trust Yahya any longer.
In the afternoon, a black Mercedes left military Command Headquarters and took an internal route through the Air Force gate to arrive at nearby Tejgaon Airport. A Pakistan International Airlines Boeing 707 was preparing to take off. Group Captain A Karim Khandakar, a grounded Bengali pilot, was curious as he looked out through his office window.
“I see the president leaving,” he said over the phone to his friend, retired Squadron Leader Mirza, who had political connections. “Do we have a deal?” Like most conscientious persons following the political discourse, Khandakar wanted to know if the central leaders and the Awami League had come to an understanding.
“Not that I know,” replied Mirza. “Let me check.”
Shortly before March 25, 1971, the military junta grounded all Bengali pilots. Bengali personnel in the military, para-military rifles and police in East Pakistan were disarmed. No reason given.
(Several foreign journalists continued to stay in Dhaka, defying military orders to leave. I depended largely on their accounts and subsequent written materials for the days’ events.)
An almost full moon surrounded by twinkling stars commanded the midnight sky. Dhaka, a city of six million, was resting, despite the political uncertainties that had overwhelmed the province for weeks. The destitute, the beggars and homeless men, women and children claimed most of the downtown sidewalks. Dogs fought in the garbage nearby, jackals howled at a distance and owls hooted in the trees as rickshaws and three-wheeled baby-taxis patrolled the streets looking for nightly riders.
Suddenly the cranking noise of military machines broke the quiet serenity of the night. American M-24 tanks rolled out of the cantonment, their main guns swiveling on turrets like raised cobras with exposed fangs, itching to hurl their venom. Mobile columns carrying troops with loaded Chinese automatics followed for the groundwork. US-supplied F-86 fighter-bombers sat ready at takeoff points, poised to strike. Artillery cannons were zeroing in on Dhaka University, the Para-military rifles at Peelkhana, the Police Center at Rajarbagh and the densely populated old town.
Military Fireworks
Thirty minutes past midnight, the fireworks began. For the Bengalis of East Pakistan, Doomsday had arrived. It was Jallianwala Bagh, Nanking and Pearl Harbor combined. It was the start of the Million Kills. Before the unarmed and unsuspecting residents knew what had happened, a few thousand lay dead.
Surviving university students never knew why their dorms were cannoned, crushing thousands of their fellow students under the debris. Few boarders at girls’ hostels returned to their families. Most succumbed to gang rapes; some committed suicide, choosing death to dishonor.
Middle-aged Rahima would never know why her husband, four children and a few hundred other destitute at Gulistan became victims of military brush fires. A racing military truck crushed the wandering ragtag woman two days later, saving her from the agony of loss.
Samad, a young passenger at the Kamalapur Railway Station, heard the rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns and dived into a nearby garbage bin; he could not make out why 200 other passengers fell to their deaths on the platform.
Late-night shoppers bled and then collapsed at Nawabpur, Sadarghat and New Market. Rickshaw drivers would never see a fare again, nor would cart-pullers ever see another sunrise.
Outside Dhaka, the local military commanders staged their own shows, following directions contained in the Top Secret packets they received a day earlier.
The next morning, streets and marketplaces in cities were covered with mutilated bodies, like a tapestry taken out of the Kurukshetra, the mythical battleground of Mahabharata, while the soldiers continued murdering people throughout the day.
An exodus of panicked city residents commenced, but few made it to safety. Boats were sunk, trains were bombed and buses were torched.
Medieval barbarism had returned to East Pakistan!
Oblivious to the mayhem, dogs, crows, even fish in the waters feasted on human flesh. In the countryside, vultures and eagles joined in for their share of the bounty.
International journalists who stayed within the safe zone of the Hotel Inter-continental, defying the military orders to leave, were able to leak bits of news to a shocked world.
Death Toll
On March 28, 1971, the New York Times put the two-day death toll in Operation Searchlight at 10,000. Four days later, that same daily newspaper said 35,000 were killed in Dhaka alone. The Sydney Morning Herald of March 29, 1971, estimated the number: 10,000 – 100,000 killed. The International Herald Tribune (IHT) on March 30, 1971, quoted an eyewitness who gave the number murdered in Dhaka at 7,000.
The Daily Telegraph on March 29, 1971, reported, “The shelling of the capital Dhaka has been cold-blooded and indiscriminate, although there was almost no sign of armed resistance.”
According to the New York Times of April 12, 1971, “It’s a veritable bloodbath. The troops have been utterly merciless. It was like Genghis Khan all over again.” A month later, the Times reported, “80,000 Punjabi and Pathan soldiers slaughtered an estimated 300,000 Bengalis by the end of April.”
Within hours after ordering Operation Searchlight, President Yahya Khan addressed the nation from a safe distance in Karachi. He put the entire blame on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for the failure of the Dhaka talks. He did not say a word about the butchery he had personally ordered on the Bengalis there.
Tikka Khan had earlier earned the title “Butcher of Balochistan” for ruthlessly crushing political dissidents in that province. He now added a new feather to his blood-tainted cap: “Butcher of Bengal.”
The sins of the Bengalis? They dared to demand freedom from exploitation by their military and Punjabi overlords. They were audacious to ask for economic emancipation, administrative equality and political fair play.
Most Bengali leaders, who did not face immediate bullets, went into hiding. Sheikh Mujib, however, did not. An army commando group picked up the tall, dark, bespectacled politician from his residence without any resistance.
A week later, newspapers prominently featured a pensive Mujib wearing his traditional white kurta-pajama and sleeveless black coat. He was at Karachi Airport, surrounded by armed guards.
I am puzzled at two things:
Why a seemingly seasoned politician like Sheikh Mujibur Rahman failed to visualize the game plan of the military junta when the plane loads of troops and armaments were poring in before his very nose? A delegation from Chittagong (Captain Amin Ahmed Chowdhury) came to warn Mujib about the military plans but was summarily dismissed. Suspicion arises: was Mujib so obsessed with power in Islamabad that he became a party to the military’s plan?
- Why Mujib surrendered on March 25, 1971 instead of declaring independence and joining the liberation war, even though he declared on March 7: এবারের সংগ্রাম স্বাধীনতার সংগ্রাম …আমাদের মুক্তির সংগ্রাম…রক্ত যখন দিয়েছি, আরো রক্ত দিব…? (Our struggle this time is for our independence, our freedom, and will shed more blood, when needed.)
Call for Independence
Thirty hours later, on March 27, an announcement came from the Kalurghat radio station in Chittagong:
“I, Major Ziaur Rahman, hereby declare the independence of the Republic of Bangladesh. As the temporary Head of the Republic, I call upon all Bengalis to rise against the attack by the West Pakistani Army. We shall fight to the last to free our motherland. By the grace of Allah, victory is ours.”
(The announcement was later modified to have been given on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the supreme Bengali political leader at the time. Zia is shown here in a latter-day picture of Major General)
A Japanese merchant ship at the Bay of Bengal picked up the broadcast and relayed it to the outside world. There was an immediate snowball effect. The disoriented people of East Pakistan received their direction and started the war of independence.
Before the start of the onslaught, the Pakistani Army had disarmed the Bengali elements at their bases in East Pakistan, but many Bengalis in the outlying areas still possessed weapons. They revolted, with or without arms. In some cases, they broke the armories and stole the weapons.
I missed the carnage. I escaped the horror. I was 1,300 miles away in Sialkot, West Pakistan, serving as an army captain. Strict news censorship kept me in the dark. International papers were kept out of reach. Listening to overseas radios that gave news of East Pakistan was discouraged. The official explanation: “That information is false and biased.”
Coming from a family loyal to Pakistan, I accepted that. I even believed the president when he said on March 26 that whatever steps he had taken were necessary to save the nation from disintegration. I did not give much credence to the rumors to the contrary that were trickling in, until two months later.
In May, on a visit to a Bengali family in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, I came across a pack of clippings they had received in secret from a relative overseas. The New York Times, Newsweek, TIME, International Herald Tribune, Telegraph, and The Guardian described in detail the true stories of East Pakistan–the massacre, the rape, the destruction, the barbarity.
Not all of these descriptions could be false and biased, I reasoned. And then, my emotions totally imploded, caused by the agony of my shattered trust and the curse of my misplaced loyalty.
I was no longer at peace with myself. I kept visualizing countless dead bodies, endless wailing of sufferers and blank gazes of violated women that posed a million questions to me.
A Soldier’s Debt
“I am a soldier,” I said to myself. “It is my obligation to respond to their cries. I have a mission to complete. I have a debt to pay to my people–a soldier’s debt.”
* Taken largely from “A Soldier’s Debt”, Rashed Chowdhury, 2015, Amazon. The Bangla version is coming soon.
The writer, then Captain, fled from Lahore in a military Jeep and crossed the border to India and then joined the Z Force of Colonel Ziaur Rahman in 1971.