: How A Pak Army Colonel Fled To India Won Freedom For Bangladesh in 71 #IndiaNEWS #History Lt Colonel Quazi Sajjad Zahir (Retd), a hero of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, was earlier this week

How A Pak Army Colonel Fled To India Won Freedom For Bangladesh in 71 #IndiaNEWS #History
Lt Colonel Quazi Sajjad Zahir (Retd), a hero of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, was earlier this week honoured with the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award in the Republic of India. His story is fit for the script of an epic war movie.
(Images above courtesy DD News and Wikimedia Commons)
A former soldier with the Pakistan Army in the erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) province, Col Zahir could no longer stomach the brutal atrocities committed on his fellow Bangaldeshis, and fled the country. He left for India with just Rs 20 in his pockets, the clothes on his back and whatever information he could gather on the Pakistan Army’s war plans. After his desertion, the Pakistan Army issued a death sentence against him which stands till this day.
(Image courtesy Twitter/MyGovIndia)
Unspeakable Atrocities
After joining the Pakistani Army, sometime towards the end of 1969, he was commissioned into its Artillery Corps, according to this report by The Print. By March 1971, he was a soldier posted in the Pakistan Army’s elite 14th Para Brigade posted in Sialkot.
Here is what a BBC report stated of the situation in the erstwhile province of East Pakistan.
The conflict was sparked by elections [Pakistan general elections 1970], which were won by an East Pakistani party, the Awami League, which wanted greater autonomy for the region.
While the political parties and the military argued over the formation of a new government, many Bengalis became convinced that West Pakistan was deliberately blocking their ambitions. The situation started to become violent.
The Awami League launched a campaign of civil disobedience, its supporters attacked many non-Bengali civilians, and the army flew in thousands of reinforcements.
On the evening of 25 March it launched a pre-emptive strike against the Awami League, and other perceived opponents, including members of the intelligentsia and the Hindu community, who at that time made up about 20% of the provinces 75 million people.
In the first of many notorious war crimes, soldiers attacked Dhaka University, lining up and executing students and professors. Their campaign of terror then moved into the countryside, where they battled local troops who had mutinied.
This reign of terror began on 25 March following the arrest of Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had only weeks earlier on 7 March issued a legendary speech proclaiming that — “This time the struggle is for our freedom. This time the struggle is for our independence???. It was Mujibur who called for civil disobedience in the province and wanted “every house to turn into a fortress???. He knew the fight for Bangladesh’s liberation was on since there was no way the West Pakistan establishment would ever accept the poll results.

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