How Dacca was liberated
By Our Special Correspondent, Dacca was liberated without a battle. It was no telltale story; for, Indian troops advancing from all directions made it impossible for the Pakistani troops of occupation in Bangladesh, deployed in Dacca to flee. They advanced towards the city from the north along Tangail-Joydevpur road from the east along Narsingdi and from south-east along Daudkandi-Dacca road. The Pakistanis in their defense position at Dacca were really crippled by the three-prong attack and Niazi, commanding the troops, decided that he had lost control of the people under his command.
Evidently, there was utter confusion in the ranks of the Pakistani troops at Dacca and as Lt. Gen. Aurora, GOC-in-C, Eastern Command, told newsmen in Calcutta on Friday Niazi was not in “a fit state for fighting”. Instead of losing the valuable lives of many, Niazi decided to surrender.
This at any rate gave a fair idea of Gen. Aurora’s strategy of fighting the Pakistani occupation forces in the Bangladesh theater. The strategy, the General explained, was directed at securing total surrender of Pakistani troops. He therefore did not go for big towns and cities and instead created conditions in which it would be futile for the Pakistanis to fight. Such conditions, the General said, were created essentially by bypassing the enemy and then the troops. “I am glad to say that this strategy and technique worked extremely well”, the General added.
Incidentally the General mentioned that from the part of the ammunition seized from the Pakistani troops it appeared they were going for a long fight. But, he said an army did not fight with ammunition alone. There should be an opportunity to regroup and a total control of lines of communications. In the present case what really happened was that they had lost their mobility. They could only fight to the bitter length or give up fighting, realizing that they could not retrieve the situation. In most cases they decided to give up. It didn’t dawn on the commanders that “my task was to make it difficult for them to fight”.
Indeed Gen. Aurora thought that the overall planning of the Pakistani commander was faulty. Even if some of their units and subunits were in a position to stretch out fighting they were not in a position to do so as they could not support each other in isolated pockets. One of the well-known concepts of war the General explained was not to get the men isolated and divided. “I am afraid they did not give due consideration to this and that enable us to divide them.” All the same, everything was possible because of the great support extended by the IAF and the Indian Navy. Their cooperation was great. The Indian Navy saw to it that no assistance could come to Bangladesh from Islamabad nor could anyone escape through the two ports, Chittagong and Khulna. Indian jawans and their commanders also rose to the occasion and fought day and night without any respite.
It was under such circumstances that Niazi issued orders to his troops to “surrender arms” on Thursday. It was not Gen. Aurora said, a cease-fire, it was surrender pure and simple. The General did think individually the Pakistani units and sub-units fought “extremely well” with resolution and comperence. But as Niazi told the General at the time for formal surrender the Mukti Bahini was of great help to 16 Indian troops. The Mukti Bahini Niazi admitted they were giving all sorts of information to the Indian Army about the enemy. And the General added that was so.
PRISONERS
Asked by reporters about the number of prisoners of war, the General said that Niazi had himself told him that there were some 93,000 military and paramilitary troops under his command. All of them excepting those who had been killed during the operation would be the charge of the Indian Army. That, he added, was going to be a major problem for him; because it was not merely a question of looking after them, but also a problem of ensuring the security of the Pakistani prisoners so long as they were in Bangladesh. This question of ensuring their security would remain so long as they were not brought to India and then at a later stage repatriated to West Pakistan. The prisoners would soon be brought to India as otherwise they would constitute a big problem in Bangladesh.
A reporter asked why he was so worried about the prisoners. Had there been too many killings in liberated Bangladesh? The General replying said he knew it too well that when his troops arrived and took charge of Dacca everything had been done to see that troops were going to stay in Bangladesh. The General replied that Indian troops would be in Bangladesh not for long. All he had to ensure was that the prisoners were repatriated and the law and order situation was established in the liberated areas. He would also have to make certain that roads and communications were put into proper shape. “As soon as I can do that I will get out of it come to Calcutta, relax and go to the races and play golf.”
Immediately his task was to render assistance to the rebuilding of roads and communication systems as otherwise the economy of Bangladesh could not improve. Moreover, he would have to look after proper repatriation of refugees in India to their homes in Bangladesh. He would make every effort to put Bangladesh on its feet.
He did not think it would take months to complete these tasks: but he would have to do the job of restoring normal conditions in Bangladesh and bringing the prisoners out to India.
He did hope that civil administration would take control of the situation very soon. The Bangladesh Government had already decided that the present civil administrator would carry on till some permanent arrangements were made.
On the question of the disarming of the Mukti Bahini the General said that they were keeping arms with them. There was no move to disarm them. Actually the Bangladesh Government would decide if they would be disarmed as also what forces they would require to build an army or for the work of the police. The Bangladesh Government would find some alternative jobs for Mukti Bahini people, who would be disarmed. The General did not think it was a big problem. ·
Finally, talking about Pakistani troops the General said that they did shoot down people before evacuating from different places during the war. At some places their treatment of women was extremely bad. There were even women in their bunkers and this one could not expect of “a civilized Army”. This was really the most deplorable aspect of the Pakistani Army, the General said.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 18.12.1971