According to a new book by Oxford University Press, Pakistan’s
name has been blackened by just one man:
General AAK ‘Tiger’ Niazi. He is believed
to have pronounced the words that even Genghis Khan would have hesitated to
use: that he would let loose his soldiers on the women of East Pakistan till
the lineage/ethnicity of the Bengali race was changed.
This account has come
from a true son of Pakistan, late Major-General (retd) Khadim Hussain Raja in
his recently published book A Stranger in My Own Country: East Pakistan, 1969-1971 (OUP, 2012). The book is posthumously
published probably because it was a hot potato in the times it was actually
written. He was General Officer Commanding 14th Division in East Pakistan.
"Gul Hassan openly
criticized Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s sons who, according to him, were letting
their father down by amassing wealth by unfair means. Gul Hassan blurted out that 'I have told the old cock that this time we will impose Martial Law and take control ourselves but not protect Ayub and his henchmen'. The reference [old cock] was to General Yahya Khan, Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army"(p.8).
General Yahya Khan, who took over from Ayub was not what the
doctor would have ordered for East Pakistan. The only leadership criterion was
brutality riding on low IQ. The exception was General Yaqub Khan, the commander
who insisted that General Yahya not postpone the session of the National
Assembly elected after the 1970 election. The author writes: “All of a sudden,
General Yaqub Khan was bundled off as a student on the Imperial Defence College
course. This clumsy and unceremonious action was obviously taken to get him out
of the way” (p.7).
Commander East Pakistan, General Tikka Khan, disagreed with Raja
that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman be secretly dispatched to West Pakistan. He wanted
to “publicly try Sheikh Mujib in Dhaka and hang him” (p.93).
Major-General Rahim Khan was the other officer Pakistan can’t be proud of: “Rahim started to criticize the
senior commanders in Dhaka, especially me, although I happened to be a friend
of his. He was of the opinion that the Bengalis were timid people and should
have been subdued long ago. The reader can judge for himself the ignorance and
lack of understanding of the East Pakistan situation among the hawks in the
armed forces” (p.97). Rahim ran away from East Pakistan when things became too
hot.
We come to the climax:
“[Enter] Commander East Pakistan General Niazi, wearing a pistol holster on his
web belt. Niazi became abusive and started raving. Breaking into Urdu, he said: Main iss haramzadi qaum ki
nasal badal doon ga. Yeh mujhe kiya samajhtey hain. (I will change
this illegitimate-born race; what they think of me). He threatened that he would let his soldiers
loose on their womenfolk. There was pin drop silence at these remarks. The next
morning, we were given the sad news. A Bengali officer Major Mushtaq went into
a bathroom at the Command Headquarters and shot himself in the head” (p.98).
Niazi also asked Raja for phone numbers of his Bengali girlfriends: “Abhi tau mujhey Bengali girlfriends kay phone number day do”
(p.99). Niazi surrendered to Indian General JFR Jacob in 1971. ‘Tiger’ Niazi
handed over his personal pistol at the famous Race Course ceremony. Jacob
examined the weapon: the lanyard was greasy and frayed, and the pistol was full
of muck as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a long while.
(*) A page from The Express Tribune; www.tribune.com.pk/story/genetic-engineering-in-East-pakistan. Accessed Jul.27, 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment