Amazing Bangladesh Liberation War between India and Pakistan five decades ago

- Hotline-Bhalchandra Jani

- India-Pakistan played between 3rd December to 14th December 1971. A flying look at the thrilling hours of the Third War between five decades later ...

The period of fifty years is said to be very long. But when you look at the history of a great country, this period seems too short. As if it is still a matter of yesterday. Exactly 30 years ago, on December 3, 191, Pakistan declared war on India. In this battle which lasted for 15 days, Pakistan had to suffer a great defeat. East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), considered his right hand man, was lost by the Pak rulers.

Indo-Pak of 181 During the war, 4,000 Indians were killed and India suffered an economic loss of Rs 500 crore. Against this, India had killed 20,000 Pakistani soldiers. And another 3,000 crops. The soldiers were made prisoners of war. Let us recall today the heroic story of the Indian Army after 40 years.

As always, the enemy started the war of 191. The fighting was not accidental but Pakistan's long-running conspiracy. The seeds of the war played in December 191 were sown in March 191. In which Pakistan's internal class war was responsible. The way Verzer's flames erupted again and again. Similarly, there was a big gap between the Muslims of West Pakistan. Although East Pakistan was more prosperous in terms of agriculture and other produce, the Pakistani elites were exploiting the Bengali Muslims. Between 19 and 181, three million Bengali Muslims were trampled underfoot by Pakistani troops. As well as the rampant Pak military in East Pakistan, over two and a half lakh women have been raped in these two and a half decades. To raise their voice against this tyranny of the rulers, the Bengali Muslim youth of East Pakistan formed the Mukti Vahini. To intensify his campaign against the rulers, he was led by a literal Sher-Dil leader like Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Given the time and circumstances, it can be said that Pakistan paid enough attention to the weather and geography for this war. The period from August to December is considered favorable for Pakistan to go to war. There are deserts in many areas along the Kutch-Rajasthan border where strong winds blow from west to east after August. So the whistling of hot sand with the wind causes trouble for our army.

Pakistan's General Yahya Khan, however, gave more importance to the political situation than to the geographical situation. Inflation put Maza in his corrupt regime. This caused widespread dissatisfaction among the people. And the people were protesting strongly against the regime. Four lakh refugees from Afghanistan came to Pakistan and so the economy of Pakistan was disrupted. To get rid of all these weaknesses and to divert the attention of the people, Yahya Khan dared to invade India and thus for the third time independent India had to go to war against the neighboring country.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in his book The White House Service, mentions at one point that Yahya Khan's invasion of India with his troops from Bangladesh on December 3, 191 was suicidal. Although Yahya Khan was worried that Pakistan would be destroyed or divided, he fought the war because of Tumakhi. Kissinger goes so far as to say that the leaders of the Pakistani military never plan for war properly, and therefore defeat is written off right from the start of their war.

Such negligence on the part of India can never be possible. The ever-ready and well-equipped Indian Army feared that Yahya Khan would be foolish to go to war at any moment. So all three of our armies had long-term planning. The era of seizing each other's territory by fighting for months is over. The war of 181 was also fought by the Indian Army for a short time and with a different objective. Pakistan's military rule had the audacity to cross the Indian border since March 191. On the other hand, even in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), the military authorities treated the locals with contempt. Therefore, even before the war broke out, the generals of the Indian Army had not decided that if we had to go to war against Pakistan, we would have to move strategically towards victory in a short period of time. For this, a strategy was devised to quickly strike at the enemy's offensive power, encrypt its defensive line and scatter all sources of its supplies.

The first naval task assigned to the navy in the 191 war was to blockade the ports of East Pakistan at that time, and the Eastern naval fleet took over the task of shutting off General Niazi's weapons, ammunition and other supplies. Air strikes on Dhaka and Chittagong continued from the sky while our warships from the sea were firing with their powerful cannons. The result was that the Pakistani army had to withdraw from all important military bases. As many as 3,000 Pakistani soldiers had to surrender in the face of a three-pronged attack by the Indian Army.

The port was destroyed by the Indian navy in two heavy attacks on Karachi in a week in the west. It also disrupted Pakistan's maritime trade. Ships from other countries had to seek permission from the Indian Navy to enter the port of Karachi! The Indian Navy's air wing cut off oil supplies to Pakistan by dropping bombs on oil tanks at Kimari near Karachi. Pakistan's military chiefs were taken aback by the onslaught. His mind was confused.

Former Indian Air Force Group Captain Suresh Chitnis was in charge of the Eastern Region in December 191. He recalls the days of the war when the first attack was made by the Pakistan Air Force on December 2. Four Pakistani submarine planes entered the airspace over West Bengal. His intention was to bomb the city of Kolkata. But even before the bombers reached Kolkata, India's old net planes crashed in front of it, shattering three of the four saberjets.

A fourth Saberjet was shot down by an Indian anti-aircraft gun near Agartala. The war formally began on December 3, and by December 5, the air force had established its supremacy in the eastern region. In this war which lasted for 14 days, the Indian Air Force killed 6 consignments out of about 200 consignments daily. Thus the Indian Army had established complete supremacy over the border provinces on both sides by continuing air strikes in the eastern as well as the western region. That too to the extent that not a single Pakistani plane was able to ascend into the skies during the entire war to counter the attacking Indian Air Force planes.

Remember that this was a war to liberate Bangladesh. That is why the aircraft carrier 'Vikrant' was kept in the Bay of Bengal. As a result, the Western Naval Command was tasked with intercepting any Pakistani submarine that reached Mumbai's Bara. It may come as a surprise to know that despite Mumbai being an important city, the army has never given enough thought to its air defense. Even during the war of 181, no air force was stationed near Mumbai. There was a provision for our fighter planes to take off from as far as Poona airbase if Pakistani bombers crashed into Mumbai city like Yanken. So for seven days of this war, the real defense of Mumbai city was not by the air force but by the navy.

The Indian Navy's Sea-King helicopters were constantly flying in the sky watching the movement over the Arabian Sea. Alas, if a Pakistani 'Midget' submarine had been smuggled under the sea to Mumbai, it would have been detected by the Navy.

One of the most important aspects of the 191 war. Crop to the Bay of Bengal. Navy arrogance. Reaching as far as Visakhapatnam, Pakistan had hatched a secret conspiracy to destroy Vikrant, India's only (then) aircraft carrier. He also enlisted the help of an American mercenary (mercenary agent). The navy was revived on October 9, 1913 when the three navy chiefs and the defense minister met in Delhi. The then Flag Officer Commanding in Chief Vice Admiral N. Krishnan was also present. He gave details of what he had done to defend the Bay of Bengal in the event of a war. On the night of the meeting, Yahya Khan announced on Pakistan Radio that "in the next ten days, I will go to war against India."

Vice Admiral N. Krishna wrote in his book 'No Webt Surrender' that "even before the war started I had an intuition that Pakistan would need to try to bring our aircraft carrier Vikrant to Jaffa." The navy will deploy the fleet's most powerful submarine, Ghazi. And so it happened. According to the log book of the submerged Ghazi submarine, the submarine left Karachi on November 16, crossed the Arabian Sea, crossed the Indian Ocean and reached the Bay of Bengal on November 30. On November 9, the Ghazi submarine approached the port of Madras in search of prey like a tiger, but our naval officers sent the aircraft carrier Vikrant to Calcutta.

The INS Rajput, a radar-like vessel bearing the imprint of this huge ship, was taken out of Vishakhapatnam port and sent to the Mediterranean. The exchange of wireless messages on the ship was deliberately increased so that the enemies would have guessed that the ship that sent such a large number of radio signals was INS Vikrant.

All the lights, lighthouses, signal lights of Visakhapatnam as well as Madras ports were switched off in order to thwart the enemy and throw them into a maze. A message was sent by a sailor from the warship Rajput that the pilots of the Ghazi submarine were selling their prey against what they considered to be a selling ship. Then I will come home. ' The message was intercepted by a Ghazi radio officer, and immediately, as expected, a Commodore of the Pakistani submarine wing arrived from Karachi, ordering that "spy equipment indicates that the carrier (Vikrant) was heading for the port (Madras) ... smash it with full force." '

After falling into a trap set by Indian Navy officers, the Ghazi submarine ran towards INS Rajput in the dark of night. The Pakistani sailors thought that the hunter (Vikrant) had come, now let's call for his extinction. But in a fit of rage, Ghazi's drivers made a big mistake. Ghazi peeked out of the submarine to see what had happened on the surface of the water. Ghazi sank back into the water, believing it to be an aircraft carrier. And began to go straight in that direction. After this upheaval of Ghazi submarine, two depth charges were thrown into the sea by the warship Rajput and in a few minutes there was a huge explosion .... The trick of the Indian navy worked. Due to the stupidity of Pakistani sailors, Ghazi submarine had to sink.

The funny thing is that the Ghazi submarine which went to find the prey itself became the prey. The Indian aircraft carrier Vikrant was approaching the port of Dhaka at the time of the incident and was attacking a Pakistani military base in East Pakistan. .

On December 4, Seahawk planes flew over Vikrant's deck, circling Cox's Bazar, Chittagong and Dhaka ports. The 'Eliza', known as the Cobra, flew over small towns like Do Hazari, Chalna, Khulna and Mongla in the dark of night. One military base after another was destroyed in a series of air strikes by the Indian Navy and Air Force. The Pakistani merchant ship, which was stationed at Dhaka and Cheetah Gong port, also spoke loudly. All airstrips were also destroyed. That is why not a single fighter plane of the Pakistan Air Force could ascend to the skies in this 14-day war.

Thus the battle, which was fought from the third of December to the seventeenth of December, was a bird from the beginning. The tide of victory had turned to India from day one. At the end of this bloody war, under the hands of Lt. Gen. Jagjit Singh Arora of the Indian Army, 5,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered. General Niazi of Pakistan himself had to remove the military insignia from his uniform and sign a document accepting asylum. We took 5,000 Pakistani soldiers as prisoners of war, against which they took 50 Indian soldiers prisoner. The Indian Army, with the help of the government, served about one crore displaced persons in East Pakistan. He was rehabilitated. Numerous camps were set up in West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam for this purpose. Took.

After all, the people hailed the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as Durgamata for India's resounding victory in the war against Pakistan's surprise invasion. General Sam Manekshaw received the highest military rank of Field Marshal. After the war, Pakistan's dictator General Yahya Khan was ousted from power. If India invades in the future, Sindh and Balochistan should be liberated from the herb of 191 just like East Bengal was liberated and Azad Kashmir under Pakistani occupation should also be stripped and this neighboring nation should be silenced forever.