1971: 'Operation Searchlight' to wipe out Bengalis

 
"Operation Searchlight" was the codename for a planned military operation carried out by the Pakistan Army in an effort to curb the Bengali nationalist movement in erstwhile East Pakistan in March 1971 and to eliminate the Bengali race.

It was the most brutal genocide ever in the history of mankind. History has never seen such a large number of people wiped out in such a short period of time in Bangladesh. On March 25, 1971 Pakistanis Army and their local collaborators killed 3 million innocent people, raped more than a two lakh women; destroyed most of the factories, roads, bridges and culverts, burned houses, engaged in indiscriminate arson and plundering 10 million people forced to leave the country.

The Pakistani military headed by General Yahya Khan carried out the genocide in the then East Pakistan which including rape and other barbaric ways like burying Freedom Fighters alive in the name of 'protecting the integrity of Pakistan' and 'to protect Islam'.

Many accounts of brutality of Pakistani occupation army and their local collaborators were published in the international media that horrified conscious and aware people across the world. A report published in Newsweek on June 28, 1971, titled "The terrible blood bath of Tikka Khan", quoted Tony Clifton, a correspondent of Newsweek, who visited some refugee camps in Agartala of India. Clifton wrote:

"Anyone who goes to the camps and hospitals along India's border with Pakistan comes away believing the Punjabi army is capable of any atrocity. I have seen babies who have been shot, men who have had their backs whipped raw. I've seen people literally struck dumb by the horror of seeing their children murdered in front of them or their daughters dragged off into sexual slavery. I have no doubt at all that there have been a hundred 'Mylais' and 'Lidices' in East Pakistan -- and I think, there will be more.

On March 25, 1971 at midnight, the Pakistani forces suddenly cracked down on the unarmed sleeping people in capital Dhaka. Their first target was the residence of teachers, officials and employees and student dormitories of Dhaka University. The police and East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) headquarters followed. Then came the slums, markets and Hindu-populated areas in Dhaka, most of which were torched and bombed.

 They killed university teachers, employees and students either in their rooms or in a firing squad in the campus. Some were taken away and remained missing until now. They sprayed bullets as people fled from burning homes. These people died without knowing their crime. It is estimated that around 60,000 people of the city were killed on that single night.

The Pakistanis at first used tanks and mortars to kill a large number of people of a locality. The shells shook the city and destroyed buildings with people inside. Then they killed innocent ones lining them up after taking them away from their houses. Some were put to death by bayonets or burnt alive by the barbaric Pakistani army. They also slaughtered people like animals. In some cases, people were tortured for months until death emancipated them. The last method was followed especially for the freedom fighters. There are many people who witnessed that freedom fighters being dragged on the streets pulled by army jeeps, which would only stop to confirm whether or not their prey was dead.

The genocide continued for the next nine months till December when the Bangladesh Mukti Bahini and backed by Indian army liberated Dhaka and forced 90,000 Pakistani soldiers to surrender as mighty faces. The genocide remains the largest & the bloodiest massacre since WWII.

Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested after midnight, minutes after he declared Bangladesh independent in response to the bloodbath. Two weeks earlier on March 7, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib had warned people about West Pakistan's ill intentions and called upon the people to be prepared to launch the freedom. The rest, as they say, is history.