Editorial
That dark night in 1971
Remembering the martyred
Forty years ago tonight, seventy five million Bengalis were witness to an orgy of killing and pillage and rape by the Pakistan army equalled by few in modern history. At a time when the people of the then East Pakistan as well as West Pakistan looked forward to an honourable, democ-ratic solution to the political crisis caused by the machi-nations of a class of West Pakistani politicians and the military junta led by General Yahya Khan, the regime went for the dishonourable act of subverting the people's aspirations through a resort to force. Under what was eu-phemistically given out as Operation Searchlight, the state of Pakistan launched a genocide that would leave millions dead and the lives of those who survived changed forever.
On the night of March 25, 1971, it was plain deceit the junta resorted to. While on the one hand it gave the im-pression that a way out of the morass was being found, on the other it went busily preparing the army to unleash the calamity that eventually was not only to dash all hopes for democracy but also undermine the very foun-dations of the state of Pakistan. General Yahya Khan flew out of Dhaka secretly in the evening, but not before he had given the order to his officers to go for a military solu-tion to the problem. On that night of terror, thousands were murdered by the soldiers. Among those killed were respected academics, students, policemen, East Pakistan Rifles personnel, rickshaw pullers, indeed citizens from all walks of life. The brutality of the Pakistan army ex-tended to the Central Shaheed Minar and Kalibari at the Race Course (today's Suhrawardy Udyan), which the sol-diers destroyed in unmitigated frenzy.
It was a night of unspeakable horror and unadulter-ated evil the Bengali nation went through on March 25, 1971. We remember those who died on that night and on all the days and nights that followed, right till our achievement of victory. Their sacrifices were to pave the road to our freedom. And those who killed on that night were forever tainted by ignominy.
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