From Daily Star, on 06.12.2015:
“In the name of God and a united Pakistan, Dacca is today a crushed and frightened city. After 24 hours of ruthless, cold-blooded shelling by the Pakistan Army, as many as 7,000 people are dead, large areas have been levelled and East Pakistan's fight for independence has been brutally put to an end."
This was the famous intro of the story written by Simon Dring, the 27-year-old reporter of The Daily Telegraph of London that appeared on the March 30, 1971 issue.
Simon and 34 other journalists from the US, Australia, Britain, Canada,, France, Japan and Russia had converged on Dhaka in March 1971, staying at Hotel Intercontinental (now Ruposhi Bangla) to report on the exciting event of a Bangali leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman taking over power from the repressing West Pakistanis. The world interest was not so much for the Bangalis as for Pakistan, a strong ally of the US in the global politics of Cold War. The US was pouring in huge military aid to Pakistan in its fight against the spread of communism.
They got more than they had expected as the Pakistan army cracked down on the unarmed civilians on March 25 midnight in history's most horrendous civilian annihilation nicknamed “Operation Searchlight”.
“In the name of God and a united Pakistan, Dacca is today a crushed and frightened city. After 24 hours of ruthless, cold-blooded shelling by the Pakistan Army, as many as 7,000 people are dead, large areas have been levelled and East Pakistan's fight for independence has been brutally put to an end."
This was the famous intro of the story written by Simon Dring, the 27-year-old reporter of The Daily Telegraph of London that appeared on the March 30, 1971 issue.
Simon and 34 other journalists from the US, Australia, Britain, Canada,, France, Japan and Russia had converged on Dhaka in March 1971, staying at Hotel Intercontinental (now Ruposhi Bangla) to report on the exciting event of a Bangali leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman taking over power from the repressing West Pakistanis. The world interest was not so much for the Bangalis as for Pakistan, a strong ally of the US in the global politics of Cold War. The US was pouring in huge military aid to Pakistan in its fight against the spread of communism.
They got more than they had expected as the Pakistan army cracked down on the unarmed civilians on March 25 midnight in history's most horrendous civilian annihilation nicknamed “Operation Searchlight”.
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