2024-03-24 22:42:20
Today (March 25) is the worst black day in world history. On this day in 1971, a terrible night came at the end of the day in the life of the Bengali nation. At midnight on this day, the barbaric Pakistani invasion forces armed with sophisticated weapons attacked the unarmed Bengalis across the country, including the capital Dhaka, with the heinous aim of silencing the voice of the Bengali nation forever, according to their pre-planned Operation Searchlight blueprint.
Various programs have been taken at the national level to celebrate the day with due dignity. On this occasion, a symbolic ‘black out’ will be observed across the country from 11 to 11:31 tomorrow night. However, KPIs and emergency installations will remain exempt from the programme. On the occasion of the day, President Md. Sahabuddin and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will deliver the message. On this day, a discussion meeting on Genocide Day has been organized at the Liberation War Museum around 10:30 am.
Musical theater and cultural programs will be organized across the country on genocide and liberation war. All educational institutions including schools, colleges, madrasas will hold a commemoration and discussion meeting on March 25 in the voice of prominent people and brave freedom fighters. Rare photographs and documentaries on the genocide will be circulated in all city corporations including Dhaka. In addition to this, special prayers will be offered in all mosques and other places of worship on this day except at Zohar or at convenient times to seek forgiveness for the souls of those killed on the night of March 25, 1971. The same program will be held at the district and upazila levels and Bangladesh embassies abroad to highlight the significance of the day. Addresses will be delivered by the President and Prime Minister on the occasion and special circulars will be published in newspapers.
March 25 is the day of a tainted massacre in the history of human civilization. The Awami League under the leadership of the Father of the Nation won a single majority in the National Assembly in the 1970 elections, but the Pak-military junta started various disputes over the transfer of power. People pass the time through show meetings and engage in secret plots to kill unarmed Bengalis. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib called for non-cooperation movement on March 2, 1971; In his historic speech on March 7, he gave a specific outline to get rid of the 23-year long rule-exploitation and called for the 35-point directive to be followed from March 15. The directives of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib are followed to the letter throughout Bengal. When the civilian rule in East Bengal became completely ineffective, the West Pakistani ruling group repeatedly offered reconciliation to Bangabandhu, but if the undisputed leader of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation, gave up the illusion of power and stood firm for the country’s independence, on the night of March 25th, the Pak-invader forces launched ‘Operation Search Light’. In the name of unarmed Bengalis, the most brutal massacre in world history was carried out indiscriminately.
‘Operation Search Light’ was a hellish plan to wipe out a generation of Bengalis. In implementing the scorched earth policy of the then Pakistani ruling group, General Tikka Khan said, ‘I want the land of East Pakistan, not the people’. As a result, the life of the Bengali nation fell into a terrible dark night. This night marks the memory of a terrible cruelty. The Pakistani invasion forces went on a planned killing spree of Bengalis. The struggle for Bengali rights wanted to be washed away in the stream of blood. In order to implement that plan, on March 25th, the Pak-invader forces attacked the freedom-seeking Bengalis like a violent monster. Responding to the call of the father of the nation, the people of Bengal from all walks of life, regardless of caste, religion and caste, unitedly jumped into the liberation war. The massacres by the Pakistani occupation forces that started on the dark night of March 25 continued throughout the liberation war. The long-awaited great freedom was achieved in return for the sacrifice of three million martyrs and the loss of honor of two lakh mothers and sisters. Independent-sovereign Bangladesh was established on December 16th through a bloody 9-month armed liberation war.
March 25th was the 24th day of the Non-Cooperation Movement. Yahya secretly left Dhaka that evening. In the middle of the night, Pakistani soldiers with armored tanks started indiscriminately killing sleeping unarmed Bengalis in the name of ‘Operation Search Light’. Dhaka University, Pilkhana and Rajarbagh were ambushed and killed students and teachers, Bengali police and military personnel. Bangabandhu arrested Sheikh Mujib in the early hours of March 26. Immediately before this, the Father of the Nation wrote the final declaration of independence – ‘This may be my last message, Bangladesh is independent from today. Continue to fight until the final victory is achieved.’- which was first broadcasted by EPR’s wireless and immediately spread across the country through the leaders and workers of Awami League and Chhatra League. The Pakistanis imprisoned Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib in Pakistan’s Mianwali Jail and tortured him inhumanly. On June 13, Pakistani journalist Anthony Mascarenhas published a detailed article on the front page of UK’s ‘Sunday Times’ under the title ‘Genocide’ based on the real picture of brutal brutality of Pakistanis on Bengalis.
Two Pakistani military officers, Major General Khadim Hussain Raja and Major General Rao Farman Ali, directed this campaign of genocide. No written record of instructions was kept. The whole order of mass killing was communicated orally to the formation commander or the concerned persons. Much later, in 2012, Major General Khadim Hussain Raza published his autobiography titled ‘A Stranger in My Own Country’. In his autobiography, published by Oxford University Press, some information about Operation Searchlight is revealed for the first time.
Recalling how Operation Searchlight was planned in 1971, Raja wrote, ‘March 17, around 10 am. Tikka Khan sent me and Major General Farman to the command house to meet him. After getting the news we both met Tikka Khan. Go and see, General Abdul Hamid Khan is also there. Tikka Khan told us that Sheikh Mujib’s reconciliation talks with the President are not moving in a positive direction. The President wants us to prepare for military operations and make a plan accordingly. Apart from this, we have not received any verbal or written instructions. We were told that on the afternoon of March 18, the two of us should discuss with high-ranking officials and finalize the plan. The next morning, Khadim Hossain Raja sat in his office with Rao Farman Ali. They named this campaign of genocide Operation Searchlight.
American journalist Robert Payne wrote about the night of March 25, ‘that night 7000 people were killed, another 3000 people were arrested. The incident in Dhaka had just begun. All over East Pakistan, soldiers continued to rack up the death toll. Houses and shops started burning. Looting and destruction have become their addiction. Dead bodies lying on the streets became food for crows and foxes. All of Bangladesh became a vulture haunted cremation ground.
The recognition of this wholesale genocide is also in the documents published by the government of Pakistan itself. A white paper on the East Pakistan crisis published by the Pakistan government during the War of Liberation states: ‘More than 100,000 lives were lost between 1st March and 25th March 1971.’
An account of this is also available in the book ‘Witness to Surrender’ by Siddique Salik who was the Public Relations Officer of Lt Gen Tikka Khan and Lt Gen AAK Niazi. Siddique Salik was by the side of General Niazi during the liberation war of Bangladesh. As a loyal Pakistani, he has seen the plots of the Pakistani military junta very closely against the people of Bangladesh. On March 25, he wrote about the start of Operation Searchlight: ‘Military operations begin before the specified time. Until the appointed moment (H-hour) of such a blow, the sign of immobility disappeared. The gates of hell were opened.’