Pakistan army prepares to crack down

While it was not clear how the talks were going on at the President's House, owing to an unwillingness on the part of the regime and the Awami League to give out information, it was later to be revealed that following the meeting between Bangabandhu and Yahya Khan and then between their advisers on the previous day, orders had gone out from the regime to the army on the need for action against the Bengali political leadership. General Yahya Khan instructed General Tikka Khan to prepare for action. In actual terms, by March 18 the regime was finally ready to put into implementation the military action plan it had already begun to consider back in January as a way of preventing Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from taking power as Pakistan's elected prime minister.

Against the background of such an order from Yahya Khan, passed on by Tikka, on March 18 General Khadim Hussain Raja and General Rao Farman Ali prepared the blueprint of what would soon come to be known as Operation Searchlight. Under this euphemistically used term, the military prepared to begin its harsh action against the Bengalis. The result would be genocide on a scale unprecedented in modern history. It would push Pakistan on the road to inevitable destruction.

But of this there was, at the time, not an iota of knowledge among the Bengalis, although informed observers of the scene noted the regularity with which the strength of the Pakistani forces in their restive eastern province was being augmented. On the streets, Bengali militancy increased inexorably and open calls were being made for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to go for an outright declaration of independence for East Bengal.

Meanwhile, on March 18, Mujib rejected the commission of enquiry set up by the martial administrator, zone B (Tikka Khan) to 'go into the circumstances which led to the calling of the army in aid of civil power in various parts of East Pakistan between March 2 and March 9.' He made it clear that the people of Bangladesh would not cooperate with such a commission.