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March 24, 1971. An eerie calm prevailed all over the country. It was as if the whole country – the sky, air, and earth knew what was to happen shortly. Yahya spent the afternoon of March 25, 9171 in futile pretense of negotiations and around 7PM he flew out of Dhaka, East Pakistan. Bhutto remained. As soon as his plane reached Karachi, the director-general of civil aviation sent a message to Dhaka. Immediately, the order went out from the Eastern Command Head Quarters: SORT THEM OUT!! [1] The “Golden Bengal” as envisaged by the beloved poet Rabindranath Tagore soon would vanish under a mountain of corpses.
The massacre began! Clocks showed 11:45 PM on March 25, 1971. General Yahya ordered: “Kill three million Bengalis and they will eat out of our hand.” Colonel Naim of the 9th Division HQ of Pakistan Army boasted – “We have to sort them out to resolve the land to the people and the people to their faith.”[2] The code name of the massacre was – Operation Search Light. To ensure that there would be no witnesses to this heinous crime, all foreign journalists were ordered out of the country without any question. The West Pakistan regime wanted to cripple the Bengalis – its intelligentsia and armed forces. The armed barrack was on fire. Dhaka University was under attack.
Dhaka University Massacre
Dhaka University had always been in the forefront of the nationalist movement. It was therefore not surprising at all that there was a death list prepared for many professors of the university. The perpetrators of the Larkana Conspiracy wanted to wipe out the intellectual powers of the East. The order was given to kill everyone in the two dormitories of the University – Iqbal Hall and Jagannath hall. Janitors, sweepers, servants and resident professors were all killed. Dr. Mohammed Nasser, a professor of engineering had videotaped the whole massacre at the University from his bedroom window overlooking the Jagannath Hall [6]. The film is a stunning record of a heinous massacre that had just started in East Pakistan. In the week of March 25 alone, the death toll in Dhaka was 30,000. [2]
Genocide Begins
In the next eight months, the Pakistan army resorted to the systematic killing of innocent citizens. The army was set out to exterminate not only the Awami Leaguers who had the motif to liberate the East wing, but also intellectuals, university students, the urban poor, and the Hindu minority population. There were pre-emptive killings of Bengali police and armed forces. The army carried out “Search and Destroy” operations in the country side, burning villages after villages simply because of a hint of a suspicion of support given to a rebel fighter.
The massacre began! Clocks showed 11:45 PM on March 25, 1971. General Yahya ordered: “Kill three million Bengalis and they will eat out of our hand.” Colonel Naim of the 9th Division HQ of Pakistan Army boasted – “We have to sort them out to resolve the land to the people and the people to their faith.”[2] The code name of the massacre was – Operation Search Light. To ensure that there would be no witnesses to this heinous crime, all foreign journalists were ordered out of the country without any question. The West Pakistan regime wanted to cripple the Bengalis – its intelligentsia and armed forces. The armed barrack was on fire. Dhaka University was under attack.
Dhaka University Massacre
Dhaka University had always been in the forefront of the nationalist movement. It was therefore not surprising at all that there was a death list prepared for many professors of the university. The perpetrators of the Larkana Conspiracy wanted to wipe out the intellectual powers of the East. The order was given to kill everyone in the two dormitories of the University – Iqbal Hall and Jagannath hall. Janitors, sweepers, servants and resident professors were all killed. Dr. Mohammed Nasser, a professor of engineering had videotaped the whole massacre at the University from his bedroom window overlooking the Jagannath Hall [6]. The film is a stunning record of a heinous massacre that had just started in East Pakistan. In the week of March 25 alone, the death toll in Dhaka was 30,000. [2]
Genocide Begins
In the next eight months, the Pakistan army resorted to the systematic killing of innocent citizens. The army was set out to exterminate not only the Awami Leaguers who had the motif to liberate the East wing, but also intellectuals, university students, the urban poor, and the Hindu minority population. There were pre-emptive killings of Bengali police and armed forces. The army carried out “Search and Destroy” operations in the country side, burning villages after villages simply because of a hint of a suspicion of support given to a rebel fighter.
1. Mascarenhas, Anthony. The Rape of Bangla Desh. Delhi: Vikas Publications. 1971. Print.
2. Pai, Nitin. "The 1971 East Pakistan Genocide - A Realist Perspective." Bangladesh Genocide Archive. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.
2. Pai, Nitin. "The 1971 East Pakistan Genocide - A Realist Perspective." Bangladesh Genocide Archive. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.