In 1971 Pakistan’s military hawks sitting in Rawalpindi’s General Head Quarters (GHQ) planned a genocidal campaign on East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in which was supposed to be executed immediately.
The brutal campaign was launched exactly 52 years ago – on the night of 25 March with full ferocity and is believed to have killed thousands of people in the world’s worst one-day military crackdown in history.
Several researchers have estimate that at least 25,000 people were killed in a single night when marauding Pakistan military launched “Operation Searchlight” upon the sleeping residents in Dhaka where the crackdown was launched.
The intent to eliminate a race, language, and heritage during the brutal birth of Bangladesh, unfortunately, has not been internationally recognised as genocide and ethnic cleansing.
‘Operation Searchlight’ was jointly planned by Major General Khadim Hussain Raja, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of 14th Division deployed in erstwhile East Pakistan and Major General Rao Farman Ali, the cunning civil-military adviser to Eastern Province of Pakistan Army. There was no particular reason for the operations name, writes Gen Raja in his book “A stranger in my own country” published a year after his death.
The hawkish General Yahya Khan and also Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA), on the back of his mind, was determined not to hand over political power to Awami League, which has won a landslide victory in the Pakistan National Assembly elections.
Yahya had several tricks up on his sleeves regarding the handover of power to the majority political party and holding the first National Assembly session in Dhaka in March 1971.
Khan, in a top-secret meeting with military hawks in Rawalpindi, ordered the Eastern Command to finalise a plan for a crackdown in January or early February of 1971, suspension of all political activities and revert to Martial Law rule.
Lieutenant General Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, Commander Eastern Command held a crucial meeting with ‘Khakis’ at Dhaka cantonment, debriefed that the President [Yahya Khan] would announce sine die of the National Assembly session on March 1, 1971.
The first plan, ‘Operation Blitz’ got a go ahead signal by the GHQ and the instructions were shared with Brigade commanders to standby for their respective responsibilities. The plan permitted the armed forces to move against defiant political leaders and to take them into protective custody, wrote General Raja.
On the ground, two top brasses in Dhaka, Lt Gen Yaqub Khan and Admiral Syed Mohammad Ahsan, Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Navy and also Governor of former East Pakistan deliberately attempted to scuttle the crackdown or in other words, delay the crackdown.
Both the top military leaders in Dhaka advised Khan for a political settlement with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the president of Awami League. The party won overwhelming majority in both national and provincial elections.
President Yahya was very angry for the intentional delay. He hurriedly relieved off Admiral Ahsan as Governor of East Pakistan and appointed General Yaqub as the Governor. The appointment was short-lived and he [Yaqub] was also relieved for proposing a political dialogue with Mujib.
Yahya’s blue-eyed commander was Lt Gen Tikka Khan (the Butcher of Balochistan) for replacing General Yaqub to head the Eastern Command. On 16 March, President Yahya Khan in a bid to buy time for deployment for ‘Operation Searchlight’ sat for a debate with Sheikh Mujib on his Six Point agenda.
Tikka Khan briefed the regional commanders to standby for a military crackdown and informed that the negotiation with Sheikh Mujib was a hard nut to crack.
On 18 March, Gen Ali and Gen Raja sat on a fresh drawing board for a top-secret plan ‘Operation Searchlight’, which was more brutal. While Yahya and other hawks from Rawalpindi were in Dhaka along with fresh replacements, the President unilaterally gave a thumbs-up for the launching of dreaded ‘Operation Searchlight’.
Before the execution of the genocidal campaign, President Khan fled Dhaka before the military crackdown, hours after he landed safely at Rawalpindi, ‘Operation Searchlight’ commenced with desperate cruelty.
The GOC Gen Raja instructed that ‘Operation Searchlight’ be launched on the night between 25 and 26 March 1971. Later Gen Raja, the mastermind of both ‘Operation Blitz’ and ‘Operation Searchlight’ was also unceremoniously removed and dumped in GHQ.
Well, Gen Raja in his book lamented “This was a momentous decision and I was very sad for the country. The supreme authority had decided to plunge the country into civil strife; the end result was a foregone conclusion.”
At the end of nine months of the bloody independence struggle in mid December, the humiliating historic humiliating surrender of 93,000 Pakistan troops and civilians was negotiated in accordance to the Geneva Convention jointly with the Indian Army and Mukti Bahini guerillas.
Before, the surrender of Pakistan troops and auxiliary forces, the Muslim militias from Pakistan’s tribal areas, and dreaded henchmen who were recruited from Islamic parties have already caused a heavy toll among the millions of people.
The scares of ‘Operation Searchlight’ still haunts the people in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh, for last few years has made attempts to move resolution in the United Nations to recognise the dark-night on 25 March 1971 as ‘Genocide Day’.
Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>
