Today, March 26, is our Independence Day. Every year, we observe the day with due solemnity, remembering the launch of the brutal and barbaric operations by the Pakistan Army that killed thousands of innocent Bengali civilians in the wee hours of March 25.
Actually, if it is described in other way, the gruesome Pak military offensive was the beginning of the end of the then Pakistan's government that had waged the genocide against the entire Bengali nation of seven and a half crore people at that time in 1971.
It is called one of the black days in our history that heralded the light of the day meaning our victory. We had achieved it but we had to pay a heavy price-lives of three million people and chastity of more than two hundred thousand mothers and sisters at the hands of a barbarian and brutal Pakistani military.
The Day was the start of a nine-month-long war for our Pyrrhic victory till December 16, 1971. The saga began after a landslide victory in the national elections by the Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1970.
But to upend the election results, the then Pakistan government filed false and fabricated Agartala conspiracy case. When it became clear that promises given earlier by the Pakistani military government were not going to be followed through, the whole nation of Bangla-speaking Muslims and Hindus of East Pakistan exploded and began an all-out struggle for independence.
In reality, Pakistani military juntas were biding their time in the name of negotiations and covertly mobilized troops from the western part of the country to silence the voice of Bengalis forever. And on March 26, 1971, they unleashed world history's one of the greatest massacres against innocent people of East Pakistan.
Earlier on March 7, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivered the history's epoch-making speech at the Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka with his great clarion call "The Struggle This Time Is The Struggle for Independence." Bangabandhu's those few words were the de facto declaration of the independence of Bangladesh.
It was clearly the declaration of war against the occupied Pakistani forces. But the actual liberation war began 19 days later when the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight against Bengali civilians, intelligentsia, students, politicians and general people unleashing a genocide in the eastern part of the Pakistan.
Finally, after a long nine-month bloody war, our coveted victory was won on December 16, 1971 through the surrender of Pakistani army to the Bangladesh-Indian joint forces with the support of the then Soviet Union.
On the day each year, the whole nation pays tributes to the millions of martyrs who sacrificed their lives to liberate the country. And tons of general people throng the National Memorial at Savar, Dhaka, and other memorial places across the country to pay their respect to their beloved warriors.
