Indomitable March: ‘The military solution’ inked
March 18, 1971
On the morning of March 18, 1971, Major General Khadim Hussain Raja, the then general officer commanding of the 14th division in East Pakistan, and Major General Rao Farman Ali, the then military adviser to the governor of East Pakistan, assembled at the former's office to work on the plan for military action -- the infamous Operation Searchlight.
Khadim asked his wife to keep his Bangali ADC busy and away from his office.
"I did not want to arouse his suspicions about Farman working with me in my office the whole morning as it was a very unusual get-together in that environment," Khadim wrote in his memoir.
The two generals agreed on broad details and decided to write their respective pieces: Farman was to supervise the operations of the Dhaka garrison while Khadim was responsible for the rest of the province.
They met again at the Command House the same evening.
The plan was presented before the top generals and it was passed without any discussion except the deception involving the president.
The deception plan was overruled as President Yahya had his own plan -- to flee from Dhaka ahead of the military action.
[Khadim Hussain Raja, A Stranger in My Own Country: East Pakistan (1969-1971), UPL,2012, 71]
MUJIB REJECTS PROBE BODY
Bangabandhu rejected the commission of inquiry set up by the martial law authority "to investigate the circumstances which led to the calling of the Army in aid of civil power in various parts of East Pakistan between March 2 and March 9".
According to Mujib, the fundamental issue was whether the deployment and use of force were in aid of ulterior political purposes.
The commission was further prevented from inquiring into the actual atrocities reported from various parts of East Pakistan, involving hundreds of casualties, he added.
Bangabandhu further argued that the commission would be incapable of conducting an unbiased inquiry because no representation was provided for the aggrieved. It was yet another demonstration of West Pakistan's insensitivity to the concerns and rights of Bangalis.
Yahya was under immense pressure from army officers and the civil service and defended the proposed composition of the commission.
[Richard Sisson and Leo E Rose, War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh, UCP, 1990, pg. 115]
The negotiation between Sheikh Mujib and Yahya rolled into its third day.
Shamsuddoza Sajen is a journalist and researcher. He can be contacted at sajen1986@gmail.com