The 1971 war and Bangladesh
Suhrawardy Udyan (Ramna Race Course), Dhaka
After nine months of civil war and ten million refugees, Indian troops and the Mukti Bahini reach Dhaka; Pakistan's eastern command surrenders on 16 December.
The Pakistani army's crackdown in East Pakistan from 25 March 1971 drove some ten million refugees into India. Open war began on 3 December. On the 16th Lieutenant General A. A. K. Niazi signed the Instrument of Surrender before Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora at the Ramna Race Course, and about 93,000 Pakistani soldiers and civilians became prisoners of war.
The 1947 line around East Bengal became the border of a new state, and the Simla Agreement of July 1972 turned the ceasefire line in Kashmir into the Line of Control. The number killed in East Pakistan in 1971 has never been settled: estimates run from the 26,000 of Pakistan's Hamoodur Rahman Commission to the three million that Bangladesh gives officially.
- war
- state-formation