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Dhaka, Bangladesh. 25th March 2014 ; Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee holds a torch rally & canld lighting rally at Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka on Tuesday, demanding that March 25 be declared as international genocide day. On this black night in the nation’s history, the Pakistani military rulers launched ‘Operation Searchlight’, killing some thousand people in that night’s crackdown alone. As part of the operation, tanks rolled out of Dhaka cantonment and a sleeping city woke up to the rattles of gunfire as the Pakistan army attacked the halls at Dhaka University, the then East Pakistan Rifles (now Border Guard Bangladesh) headquarters and Rajarbagh Police Lines, killing the several thousand unarmed Bengalis on the single night. The planned and designated centres of offensive operations under that plan were Dhaka, Khulna, Chittagong, Comilla, Jessore, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Saidpur and Sylhet areas, where West Pakistani army units were concentrated. This operation ordered by the central government of West Pakistan. The original plan envisioned taking control of the major cities on March 26, and then eliminating all opposition, political or military, within one month. Prolonged Bengali resistance was not anticipated by the Pakistani planners. These systematic killings enraged the Bengalis, who declared independence from Pakistan ( March 26), to achieve the new state of Bangladesh with Ind-Soviet backing. The nine-month-long Liberation War culminated in the surrender of the occupation army on December 16 and the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent, self-governing state. (Photo by Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/NurPhoto)

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