Word: dacca
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Dacca last week, a rally held to seek the release of the imprisoned Bangladesh leader Sheik Mujibur Rahman suddenly became a public execution. Four trussed-up men who had been accused of assaulting Bengali women were brought to a public park near the Dacca Race Course, where the rally was being held. As thousands of spectators cheered, the men were tortured for more than an hour and then bayoneted to death. Other prisoners, particularly razakars, or members of the army-backed East Pakistani militia, have been summarily executed since the war ended. What distinguished the Dacca incident was the fact...
...twelve tense days, Dacca felt the war draw steadily closer, with nightly curfews and blackouts and up to a dozen air raids a day. It was a siege of sorts, but one of liberation. Until the last few days, when it appeared that Pakistani troops would make a final stand in the city, the Indian army was awaited calmly and without fear. Most people went about their usual business - offices were open, rickshas running and pushcarts plying. The sweet tea of the street stalls drew the same gabby old fellows with white beards. The mood of the overwhelming majority...
...bloodiest was at Jamalpur north of Dacca, where the Pakistani battalion commander was sent a surrender offer by one of the three Indian battalions surrounding him. The Pakistani colonel replied with a note ("I suggest you come with a Sten gun instead of a pen over which you have such mastery") and enclosed a 7.62-mm. bullet. Apparently thinking the Indians were bluffing and that he was confronted by only a company or so, the Pakistani colonel attacked that night, with five waves of about 100 men each charging head-on at a dug-in Indian battalion. The Indians claimed...
...great day for a soldier," beamed the Indian field commander, bush-hatted Major General Gandharv Nagra, who led the first red-bereted troops in. "For us, it's like going into Berlin." The scene at the Dacca garrison's cantonment seemed bizarre to an outsider, although it was obviously perfectly natural for professional soldiers of the subcontinent. Senior officers were warmly embracing old friends from the other side, amid snatches of overheard conversation about times and places 25 years ago. Top generals lunched together in the mess, and around general headquarters it was like an old home week...
After the surrender of Dacca, death was mixed with delight. Small pockets of Pakistani soldiers switched to civilian clothes and ran through the city of celebrants shooting at Bengalis and Mukti Bahini at random. By midday Friday most of them had been hunted down and either arrested or killed. I saw one summarily executed by three Mukti outside the U.S. Consulate General that morning, and a few minutes later the head of another Pakistani was laid on the corpse's chest. Civilians and soldiers were killed in nervous shootouts and accidents. Five died in front of the Hotel Intercontinental...