AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 7 – Panorama CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 228 of 332 Starting two nights previously the Indian Army had been broadcasting radio messages on Pakistani channels, talking up the strength of the Indian Army approaching Dacca, and warning that Bangladeshi freedom fighters would slaughter all West Pakistani military personnel and those perceived as having collaborated with the puppet government, unless they surrendered and placed themselves under the protection of the Indian Army. On the 15th the radio broadcast was supplemented with the announcement that the Indian Army would observe a ceasefire, represented as strictly temporary, until 9:00 am on the 16th, to give the Pakistanis time to surrender. Early on the morning of 16 Dec, the Indian Army Chief, General Manekshaw, received a response to his signals from Lieutenant General AAK Niazi, Commander of Pakistan’s Eastern Command (and hence the senior most Pakistani in Bangladesh), in Dacca. Niazi requested a six-hour extension of the Indian ceasefire, to 3 pm that afternoon, suggested a “preliminary staff meeting” in Dacca, and agreed to go ahead with “cease- fire formalities”. By his wording, Niazi was clearly still attempting to salvage an agreement that could be represented as a “cease-fire” rather than surrender. General Manekshaw responded, agreeing to the extension of the ceasefire but reiterating that the Pakistanis would have to surrender. Either he, or Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora, GOC-in-C of the Indian Army’s Eastern Command, ordered Major General JFR Jacob, the Chief of Staff (CoS) of Eastern Command, to fly to Dacca and secure the Pakistani Army’s surrender. Maj Gen “Jackie” Jacob was born in Calcutta, into the small community of Indian Jews. His family had been settled in India for over 200 years, and he often described himself as “Indian through and through”. He had joined the Indian Army in 1942. During World War 2 he served in North Africa, Burma and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and attended training in the UK and the US. He remained in the Indian Army after Independence, and was a Brigadier in the Rajasthan sector during the 1965 war. He had built a reputation as a strong staff officer, and written one of the Indian Army’s training manuals. He was appointed CoS of Eastern Command in 1969. In early 1971, when Pakistan launched its “crackdown” in East Pakistan and refugees, eventually numbering 10 million, began to stream into India, Maj Gen Jacob started work on contingency plans to engage Pakistan in the Eastern theatre, with all the difficulties of its swampy, river-riddled terrain. The strategy of selective bypass was his idea. Once the fighting started, as Indian forward troops (in particular those of IV Corps) advanced even faster than planned, Gen Manekshaw and Lieutenant General JS Aurora, Maj Gen JFR Jacob