Operation Searchlight : US President Nixon encouraged China, Iran and Jordan to supply arms to Pakistan to thwart India, while also averting his gaze from the genocide against Bengalis – and specific military jihad against Hindus – in then East Pakistan Operation Searchlight, the Pakistan military and collaborators in the Islamic fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami, Nizam-e-Islam, Razakars, al-Sham and al-Badr militias were involved in the systematic extermination of Bengali intellectuals: doctors, teachers, poets and scholars. The attacks were led by General Tikka Khan, architect of Operation Searchlight which made his reputation as the “butcher of Bengal”. Khan said—when reminded on 27 March 1971 that he was in charge of a majority Bengali province—”I will reduce this majority to a minority”. In Jessore, while speaking with a group of journalists Khan was reported to have said, “Pehleinko Mussalman karo” (First, make them Muslim). Indian journalist Amita Malik, reporting from Bangladesh following the Pakistan armed forces surrender, wrote that one West Pakistani soldier said: We are going. But we are leaving our Seed behind. West Pakistani soldiers were told that the Bengali Muslims were only recent converts to Islam. Only forcible insemination through the seed of largely Punjabi and Pathan soldiers would improve the inferior stock to create ‘proper’ Muslims.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 21:29:27 +0000