Fall Of Dhaka 1971 – Stories From Eye Witness And Researchers

 

Fall Of Dhaka 1971

“Our destiny took a violent crash when that decision was made not to transfer power to East Pakistan. Shaikh Mujeeb-ur-Rehman was undoubtedly undisputed leader of Pakistan, one Pakistan. He was supposed to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan.” Said by Barrister Iftikhar Ahmad, the war prisoner of 1971 war.

Barrister Iftikhar Ahmad

Group Captain (Retd.) Sultan Mehmood Hali, then a cadet at Pakistan Airforce Academy, shares his memory. “We were living in an apartment of the Dhaka University campus. Our next door neighbor used to every day show a big dagger which he used to sharpen and say he would say that this is the dagger I am going to slaughter you with this.”

Group Captain (Retd.) Sultan Mehmood Hali

General (Retd.) Asad Durrani was an Army Office during the Indo-Pak war of 1971 says, “that is where one came to the conclusion, we created Bangladesh like India created Pakistan! I mean this is something that some people have a problem understanding. After all Quaid-e-Azam did agree with Cabinet Mission Program.”

General (Retd.) Asad Durrani

Dr. Junaid Ahmad, the author of Creation Of Bangladesh, Myths Exploded, share his words, “With the surrender documents, these are 262 days. 3 million divided by 262 gives you a figure of 11,480. That means you have to get hold of 11,500 plus Bengalis, bring them together, kill them, bury them, and do this again and keep doing it day after day after day for 262 days.”

Dr. Junaid Ahmad

A resident of Bangladesh at the time of Indo-Pak war of 1971, Ms. Siddiqa Malik, now the Chairperson Indus Heritage Trust, share her memory of that time and says, “Driver said, oh mam you must have met Sheikh Hasina, you did you talk to her? I said no she didn't want to talk to me. She didn't even want to say Walikum Asslam to me. He says mam why is that? Why did that happen? So I said you know why because we sent her father alive.”

Siddiqa Malik

Mr. Saeed Malik, then ADC to President Yahya Khan said, “Within the cyclone in addition to human beings there were many animals which had lost their lives. And what army was doing, with the help of East Pakistani soldiers and officers, they were dragging these carcasses and then basically burning them but the people said this West Pakistani army is burning our people. It was a lie! it was just a lie.”

Saeed Malik

Mr. Nadeem-ul-Haque, a student of London School Of Economics during the war of 1971 shares, “we were in the common room, we saw Arora coming in, we saw Niazi saluting him. We saw all that happened and I must confess our jaws fell and there was a depression amongst the Pakistani community.”

Nadeem-ul-Haque

Mr. Ikram Sehgal, an Army Officer of Pakistan at that time said, “the mistake happened I think first from the army side. Soon after the crackdown took place, they collected all the foreign correspondents and sent them out of Pakistan. When a crackdown takes place, when you are trying to restore the authority of the central government, people did get killed! But at the same time, you know from the other side, there was a lot of killing of being of Biharis, Non-Bengalis etc. in isolated places and it was brutal. I have witnessed! I am a witness to it.”

Ikram Sehgal