Operation Searchlight
• Operation Searchlight was a planned military operation carried out by
the Pakistani Army to curb the movement in East Pakistan in March
1971.
• The Pakistani state justified commencing Operation Searchlight based
on anti-Bihari violence by Bengalis in early March.
• On 1 March 1971 East Pakistan governor Admiral Syed Mohammed
Ahsan was replaced after disagreeing with military action in East
Pakistan.
• His successor Sahibzada Yaqub Khan resigned after refusing to use
soldiers to quell a mutiny and disagreement with military action in
East Pakistan.
• According to Indian academic Sarmila Bose, the postponement of the
National Assembly on 1 March led to widespread lawlessness by
Bengali protesters during the period of 1–25 March, in which the
Pakistani government lost control over much of the province.
• West Pakistan neglected to send adequate aid following the Bhola
Cyclone which struck on 12 November 1970 and left close to 500,000
dead. It was also a contributing factor in the December 1970 general
election.
Bangladesh genocide
The Bangladesh genocide was the ethnic cleansing of
Bengalis, during the Bangladesh Liberation War.
On the night of 25 March 1971 the Pakistani Army launched
Operation Searchlight. Time magazine dubbed General Tikka Khan
the "Butcher of Bengal" for his role in Operation Searchlight.
Pakistani president Yahya Khan approved a large-scale military
deployment, and Pakistani soldiers and local pro-Pakistan militias
killed 3,000,000 Bengalis and raped 200,000 Bengali women in a
systematic campaign of mass murder and genocidal sexual violence.
• The army cordoned Peelkhana, the East Pakistan Rifles (EPR)
headquarters, Rajarbagh police barracks, and the Ansar headquarters
at Khilgaon.
• More than 800 EPR men were first disarmed and arrested, and many
of them were brutally killed.
• A few hundred of them managed to escape and later joined the
liberation forces.
• Pakistani forces surrounded Dhaka city with tanks and other military
vehicles. Truckloads of army men spread through the city streets to
stamp out all civil resistance.
• At midnight, the Dhaka University halls and the staff quarters were
attacked with tanks and armored vehicles.
• Several teachers, students, and officials of the University were
killed.
• Many buildings including some newspaper offices in Dhaka were
battered with mortar shells.
• Countless people were burnt alive in the houses set on fire.
• Various parts of old Dhaka, including Hindu majority Mahallas such
as Shankhari Patti and Tantibazar came under mortar shells.
• The original plan envisioned taking control of the major cities on 26
March 1971, and then eliminating all political or military opposition
within one month.
• Pakistani planners did not anticipate the prolonged Bengali resistance.
• The main phase of Operation Searchlight ended with the fall of the
major towns in mid-May. The countryside remained almost evenly
contested.
• The first report of the Bangladesh genocide was published by West
Pakistani journalist Anthony Mascarenhas in The Sunday Times,
London on 13 June 1971 titled "Genocide".
• He wrote: "I saw Hindus, hunted from village to village and door to
door, shot off-hand after a cursory 'short-arm inspection' showed they
were uncircumcised. I have heard the screams of men bludgeoned to
death in the compound of the Circuit House (civil administrative
headquarters) in Comilla. I have seen truckloads of other human
targets and those who had the humanity to try to help them hauled
off 'for disposal' under the cover of darkness and curfew.
Pro-Pakistan Islamist militias
• Members of the different political parties, who had lost the election,
opposed the Bangladeshi independence struggle and collaborated with
the Pakistani armed forces.
• According to political scientist Peter Tomsen, Pakistan's secret service, in
conjunction with the political parties, formed militias such as Al-Badr
and the Al-Shams to conduct operations against the nationalist
movement.
• These militias targeted noncombatants and committed rapes as well as
other crimes.
• The atrocities by Al-Badr and the Al-Shams garnered worldwide
attention from news agencies; accounts of massacres and rapes were
widely reported.
Victims of genocide, Rayer Bazar
Mass grave of genocide victims at
Shiyalbari
Uniformed East Pakistan rebel forces with armed civilians
patrol a street in Jessore, East Pakistan on April 2, 1971,
after West Pakistan forces withdrew
Bangladesh: Female Mukti Bahini guerillas armed
with rifles, Dhaka, 1971
Training of freedom fighters
Human remains and war materiel from the
1971 genocide in the Liberation War Museum
