A-Soldier-s-Debt---EXCERPTS

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“Teach them a lesson. Teach them hard.”

President General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan of Pakistan effortlessly gave the mandate to Lieutenant General Mohammad Tikka Khan at the headquarters of Eastern Command in Dhaka. It was the morning of March 25, 1971. He could have been coaching a cricket team. Cost of life wasn’t high on his list of considerations. He only wanted to win the game. The top notch gathering in the operation room did not miss the teeth grinding and the heavy voice of the stocky, chain-smoking president.

He’s just given the go-ahead signal for Operation Searchlight, aimed at annihilating the Bengalis of East Pakistan. Earlier on February 22nd, the generals in Islamabad had accepted the decision. “Kill three million of them,” said President Yahya in that meeting, “and the rest will eat out of our hands”.

“We are ready, sir,” said the crow-nosed, poker-faced Tikka, the military governor of the province. “Everything is lined up.”

His deputies, Major General Rao Farman Ali, Major General Khadim Hossain Raja and Major General Osman Mitha, nodded.

"It starts tonight, at zero hours,” ordered the president.

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Thirty minutes past midnight, the fireworks began. For the Bengalis of East Pakistan, doomsday had arrived. It was Jallianwala Bagh,

Nanking, and Pearl Harbor

combined. It was the start of Million Kills.

Before the unarmed and unsuspecting residents knew what happened, a few thousand lay dead.

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