Fall of 'Dacca'

How a Paksitani military official saw the events leading to the

surrender
Siddiq Salik, who was a PRO of Eastern Command, Pakistan Army witnessed the
communications between the military in East Pakistan and the West Pakistan in th
early days of December 1971 and wrote the accounts in a book called 'Witness to
Surrender'. We publish excerpts from the last chapter called of his book.

Major-General Rahim, who sustained minor injuries while fleeing from Chandpur, was
convalescing at General Farman's residence after initial medical treatment. He lay in
a secluded part of the house. Farman was with him. It was 12 December, the ninth
day of all-out war. Their minds naturally turned to the most crucial subject of the day.
Is Dacca defensible? They had a frank exchange of opinion. Rahim was convinced
that cease-fire alone was the answer. Farman was surprised to hear this suggestion
from Rahim, who had always advocated a prolonged and decisive war against India.
He said with a tinge of irony, 'Bus daney moock gaey -- itni jaldi'. (Have you lost
your nerve -- so soon!) Rahim insisted that it was already too late.

During the discussion, Lieutenant-General Niazi and Major-General Jamshed entered

the room to see the 'wounded General'. Rahim repeated the suggestion to Niazi, who
showed no reaction. Till then the expectation of foreign help had not finally been
extinguished. Avoiding the subject, Farman slipped into the adjoining room.

After spending some time with Rahim, General Niazi walked into Farman's room and
said, 'Then send the signal to Rawalpindi.' It appeared that he had accepted General
Rahim's advice, as he had always done in peace-time. General Niazi wanted
Governor House to send the cease-fire proposal to the President. Farman politely
said that the requisite signal should go from Head-quarters, Eastern Command but
General Niazi insisted, 'No, it makes little difference whether the signal goes from
here or from there. I have, in fact, some important work elsewhere, you send it from
here.' Before Farman could say 'no' again, Chief Secretary Muzaffar Husain entered
the room and, overhearing the conversation, said to Niazi, 'You are right. The signal
can be sent from here'. That resolved the conflict.

What General Farman opposed was not the cease-fire proposal itself, but the
authority to sponsor it. His earlier signal on the same subject had been rejected by
Rawalpindi -- once bitten, twice shy. General Niazi disappeared to attend to his
'urgent work' while Muzaffar Husain drafted the historic note. It was seen by Farman
and submitted to the Governor who approved the idea and sent it to the President
the same evening (12 December). The note urged Yahya Khan 'to do everything
possible to save the innocent lives.'

Next day the Governor and his principal aides waited for order from Rawalpindi, but
the President seemed too busy to take a decision. The following day (14 December),
for which a high level meeting was fixed, three Indian MIGs attacked Governor
House at 11.15 a.m. and ripped the massive roof of the main hall. The Governor
rushed to the air-raid shelter and scribbled out his resignation. Almost all the
inmates of this seat of power survived the raid, except for some fishes in a
decorative glass case. They restlessly tossed on the hot rubble and breathed their
last.

The Governor, his cabinet and West Pakistani civil servants moved, on 14 December,
to the Hotel Intercontinental, which had been converted into a 'Neutral Zone' by the
International Red Cross. The West Pakistani VIPs included the Chief Secretary, the
Inspector-General of Police, the Commissioner, Dacca Division, Provincial Secretaries
and a few others. They 'dissociated' themselves in writing from the Government of
Pakistan in order to gain admittance to the neutral zone, because anybody belonging
to a belligerent state was not entitled to Red Cross protection.

14 December was the last day of the East Pakistan Government. The debris of the
Government and Governor House were scattered. The enemy had only to neutralize
General Niazi and his disorganized forces to complete the Caesarian birth of
Bangladesh. By now General Niazi, too, had lost all hope of foreign help. He slumped
back into his earlier mood of despondency and hardly came out of his fortified cabin.
He rode the chariot of time without controlling its speed or direction.

He therefore conveyed the factual position to the President (who was also
Commander-in-Chief) and keenly waited for instructions. In my presence he rang up
General Hamid at night (13/14 December) and said, "Sir, I have sent certain
proposals to the President. Could you kindly see that some action is taken on them
soon.' The President of Pakistan and Chief Martial Law Adm-inistrator found time
from his multifarious engagements and ordered the Governor and General Niazi on
the following day 'to take all necessary measures to stop the fighting and preserve
lives.' His unclassified signal to General Niazi said :

'Governor's flash message to me refers. You have fought a heroic battle against
overwhelming odds. The nation is proud of you and the world full of admiration. I
have done all that is humanly possible to find an acceptable solution to the problem.
You have now reached a stage where further resistance is no longer humanly
possible nor will it serve any useful purpose. It will only lead to further loss of lives
and destruction. You should now take all necessary measures to stop the fighting
and preserve the lives to armed forces personnel, all those from West Pakistan and
all loyal elements. Meanwhile I have moved UN to urge India to stop hostilities in
East Pakistan forthwith and to guarantee the safety of armed forces and all other
people who may be the likely target of miscreants.'

This important telegram originated from Rawalpindi at 1330 hours on 14 December

and arrived in Dacca at 1530 hours (East Pakistan Standard Time).

General Niazi, the same evening, decided to initiate the necessary steps to obtain a
cease-fire. As an intermediary, he first thought of Soviet and Chinese diplomats but
finally chose Mr. Spivack, the US Consul-General in Dacca. General Niazi asked
Major-General Farman Ali to accompany him to Mr. Spivack because, he, as Adviser
to the Governor, had been dealing with foreign diplomats. When they reached Mr.
Spivack's office Farman waited in the ante-room while Niazi went in. Farman could
overhear General Niazi's loud unsubtle overtures to win Spivack's sympathies. When
he thought that the 'friendship' had been established, he asked the American Consul
to negotiate cease-fire terms with the Indians for him. Mr. Spivack, spurning all
sentimentality, said in a matter of fact fashion, 'I cannot negotiate a cease-fire on
your behalf. I can only send a message if you like.'

General Farman was called in to draft the message to the Indian Chief of Staff
(Army), General Sam Manekshaw. He dictated a full-page note calling for an
immediate case-fire, provided the following were guaranteed: the safety of Pakistan
Armed Forces and of paramilitary forces; the protection of the loyal civilian
population against reprisals by Mukti Bahini; and the safety and medical care of the
sick and wounded.

As soon as the draft was finalized, Mr. Spivack said, 'It will be transmitted in twenty
minutes'. General Niazi and Farman returned to Eastern Command leaving Captain
Niazi, the aide-de-camp to wait for the reply. He sat there till 10 pm but nothing
happened. He was asked to check later, 'before going to bed' No reply was received
during the night.

In fact, Mr. Spivack did not transmit the message to General (later Field-Marshal)
Manekshaw. He sent it to Washington, where the US Government tried to consult
Yahya Khan before taking any action. But Yahya Khan was not available. He was
drowning his sorrows somewhere. I learnt later that he had lost interest in the war
as early as 3 December and never came to his office.

Manekshaw replied to the note on 15 December saying that the cease fire would be
acceptable and the safety of the personnel mentioned in the note would be
guaranteed provided the Pakistan Army 'surrenders to my advancing troops'. He also
gave the radio frequency on which Calcutta, the seat of Indian Eastern Command,
could be contacted for co-ordination of details.

Manekshaw's message was sent to Rawalpindi. The Chief of Staff of the Pakistan
Army replied by the evening of 15 December saying, inter alia, 'Suggest you accept
the cease-fire on these terms as they meet your requirements..... However, it will be
a local arrangement between two commanders. If it conflicts with the solution being
sought at the United Nations, it will be held null and void.'

The temporary cease-fire was agreed from 5 pm on 15 December till 9 am the

following day. It was later extended to 3 pm, 16 December, to allow more time to
finalize cease-fire arrangements. While General Hamid 'suggested' to Niazi that he
accept the cease-fire terms, the latter took it as 'approval' and asked his Chief of
Staff, Brigadier Baqar, to issue the necessary orders to the formations. A full-page
signal commended the 'heroic fight' by the troops and asked the local commanders
to contact their Indian counterparts to arrange the cease-fire. It did not say
'surrender' except in the following sentence, 'Unfortunately, it also involves the
laying down of arms'.

It was already midnight (15/16 December) when the signal was sent out. About the
same time, Lieutenant-Colonel Liaquat Bokhari, Officer Commanding, 4 Aviation
Squadron, was summoned for his last briefing. He was told to fly out eight West
Pakistani nurses and twenty-eight families, the same night, to Akyab (Burma) across
the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Lieutenant-Colonel Liaquat received the orders with his
usual calm, so often seen during the war. His helicopters, throughout the twelve
days of all-out war, were the only means available to Eastern Command for the
transport of men, ammunition and weapons to the worst hit areas. Their odyssey of
valour is so inspiring that it cannot be summed up here.

Two helicopters left in the small hours of 16 December while the third flew in broad
daylight. They carried Major-General Rahim Khan and a few others, but the nurses
were left behind because they 'could not be collected in time' from their hostel. All
the helicopters landed safely in Burma and the passengers eventually reached
Karachi.

Back in Dacca, the fateful hour drew closer. When the enemy advancing from the
Tangail side came near Tongi, he was received by our tank fire. Presuming that the
Tongi-Dacca road was well defended, the Indians side-stepped to a neglected route
towards Manikganj from where Colonel Fazle Hamid had retreated in haste as he had
from Khulna on 6 December. The absence of Fazle Hamid's troops allowed the enemy
free access to Dacca city from the north-west.

Brigadier Bashir, who was responsible for the defence of the Provincial Capital
(excluding the cantonment), learnt on the evening of 15 December that the
Manekganj-Dacca road was totally unprotected. He spent the first half of the night in
gathering scattered elements of EPCAF, about a company strength, and pushed them
under Major Salamat to Mirpur bridge, just outside the city. The commando troops of
the Indian Army, who were told by the Mukti Bahini that the bridge was unguarded,
drove to the city in the small hours of 16 December. By then Major Salamat's boys
were in position and they blindly fired towards the approaching column. They
claimed to have killed a few enemy troops and captured two Indian jeeps.

Major-General Nagra of 101 Communication Zone, who was following the advance
commando troops, held back on the far side of the bridge and wrote a chit for
Lieutenant-General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi. It said : 'Dear Abdullah, I am at Mirpur
Bridge. Send your representative.'

Major-General Jamshed, Major-General Farman and Rear-Admiral Shariff were with

General Niazi when he received the note at about 9 am Farman, who still stuck to
the message for 'cease-fire negotiations', said 'Is he (Nagra) the negotiating team?'
General Niazi did not comment. The obvious question was whether he was to be
received or resisted. He was already on the threshold of Dacca.

Major-General Farman asked General Niazi, 'Have you any reserves?' Niazi again said
nothing. Rear-Admiral Shariff, translating it in Punjabi, said : 'Kuj palley hai'? (Have
you anything in the kitty?) Niazi looked to Jamshed, the defender of Dacca, who
shook his head sideways to signify 'nothing'. 'If that is the case, then go and do what
he (Nagra) asks,' Farman and Shariff said almost simultaneously.

General Niazi sent Major-General Jamshed to receive Nagra. He asked our troops at
Mirpur Bridge to respect the cease-fire and allow Nagra a peaceful passage. The
Indian General entered Dacca with a handful of soldiers and a lot of pride. That was
the virtual fall of Dacca. It fell quietly like a heart patient. Neither were its limbs
chopped nor its body hacked. It just ceased to exist as an independent city. Stories
about the fall of Singapore, Paris or Berlin were not repeated here.