Baibars_1260
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I could not help but notice the obvious contradiction in your statement.
Too much emphasis on "gifts", it hardly seems likely as a routine affair to an invading army.
And yet, you contradict by saying the Indian army "ALLOWED" them.
How can something be "ALLOWED" if the "GIFTS" were being given by choice.
I put the word "gift " in quotation marks for a reason. No, these "gifts" were not by choice. It was the situation that demanded a compromise. For the IA troops it was an opportunity based on a mix of wheeling dealing, and empathy based on rough linguistic affinity (Example The Bihar Regiment was in Chittagong, Cox's Bazaar, ). The "gift" in quotation marks is actually a bribe, but one given willingly just as motorists back home will try to avoid a police fine by "settling" the matter. I agree the word "allowed" could have been better phrased .
A family trying to escape being massacred and keeping their daughters safe would do anything and an Indian civil intermment was far preferable to being publicly bayoneted before seeing your daughter's dishonored.
One can understand, in an atmosphere of extreme stress and fear, incidents of giving things probably occurred, but to classify those as "GIFTS" or as widely practiced is very far-fetched. Unless the sources are purely Indian.
I have already explained the reasons why West Pakistani civilians preferred going into Indian captivity than remain unprotected in Bangladesh. They would likely survive and be repatriated. Unlike Bangladesh India was a UN member and a signatory to the Geneva convention and all the international laws covering internment of enemy nationals, In theory only even the Indian constitution guarantees equality under law of "human rights " to all present within the territory regardless of status. Under international law the Indian Army was not supposed to fraternize with enemy civilians and these civilians in a foreign territory were not their responsibility. They could have abandoned them to their fate and gone back to India. This did not happen. Not because of goodness of heart, but partly because India was concerned about its image in the world, and partly because more internees meant a better bargaining "goodwill" gesture with Pakistan. So in addition to the. 55, 000 armed forces personnel in uniform who surrendered ( of which only 45,000 were combatants), a large number of civilians were "taken prisoner ". Note, the quotes here in the words "taken prisoner". West Pakistani civilians wanted to be "taken prisoner" by India. This is analogous to the situation in World War 2 when German soldiers and civilians preferred to surrender to the US and British armies rather than the Soviet Union.
There is a huge amount of documentation how India began the process of transfer, and repatriation of Pakistani civilians, and injured, or sick Pakistani POWs as early as April 1972, completely ignoring Bangladesh and its strident protests. Search for "SYND - 72" AP archives and you will see video footage of the repatriations.
I can go to the street, put a knife to someone and demand cash, then see a watch and ask would you mind if I take that as well, the person is hardly going to say no, but I cannot claim afterward that it was a "GIFT". because I took the cash by force, but the watch was "GIFTED" to me.
I can only speak for what happened in Dhaka ( Dacca ) city, as all my sources are from there. The West Pakistani civilian populations were scattered in the city in individual homes unlike the armed forces personnel who were living in Dhaka Cantt with their families. There were no "pockets" in the city except perhaps, Mohammedpur, Lalmatia, Mirpur, and perhaps Banani ( not sure ). There was no way the Indian troops would have known each and every family in a relatively large city especially as there was a chance of confusion between "bi-lingual" Calcutta origin Bengalis and West Pakistanis . The local Bengali population knew and the process of rape, massacre, and loot had started immediately before and after the fall of the city. Ironically it was through the incidents of looting and massacre by the MB and the riff raff criminals in a city ravaged by Civil War that the Indian Army got to know which were the exact homes that belonged to Pakistanis. They then began visiting these homes, initially out of curiosity ( the rough linguistic affinity helped ), and later to strike a deal. Like the corrupt traffic cop the soldiers began to strike deals .From my anecdotal sources only there were no instances of Indian Army troops barging into a Pakistani home, ransacking it after shooting tye occupant ( which happened frequently in areas under the Bangladeshi forces control. Which is why all accounts of the plight of Pakistani civilians published in Urdu journals and magazines
later, make no mention of the Indian Army actions .
The Pakistani Indian Armed Forces relationship was a two way process. The "knife" was the threat of being stranded and left to the mercy of a state without any control or adherence to international norms, or the choice of leaving with the occupation forces withdrawal. At that time many Pakistanis thought India would stay on and integrate East Pakistan and as "Indian citizens" they would be no worse off than Indian Muslims. The biggest shock the Pakistani civilian population got was when they learned that the Indian troops would be going home.
The West Pakistani armed forces personnel were safe, because despite the optics India had allowed them to retain their small arms after the surrender till such time as sufficient troops could be brought in to maintain law and order. In any case these soldiers
explained above were covered by the Geneva convention and were entitled to repatriation.
The Pakistani civilian population was not entitled to anything, not even physical protection which was the responsibility of the Mukti Bahini (
![Face with rolling eyes :rolling_eyes: 🙄](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png)
Post-1971, India was getting an extremely bad image internationally, and the Congress led government in power in India was likely to face a backlash from its Muslim voters in the crucial states of West Bengal, UP and Bihar , many of whom had relatives still surviving in East Pakistan ( Bangladesh). So , India violated international law by interfering in the "internal affairs" of a sovereign nation which itself had created. Through a mixture of corruption, a nod and a wink , every one of the upper class Pakistani civilians were brought home numbering tens of thousands. Pakistanis preferred to "gift " their consumer goods bought with their salaries to the Indian army rather than leave them to be looted after they left along with the withdrawal of Indian forces in February 1972. Their posh homes in Gulshan and Dhanmondi were ransacked after the Indian Army withdrawal.
You've presented a sadly strange version of events, something highly unbelievable.
Unbelievable? My anecdotal discussions with the families in Bahadurad, Sharfabad, and North Karachi, have told me this. I visited Dhaka briefly to actually see the homes of these people who left. Note that I am referring to those upper and upper middle class families who all made it safely out. The labor class went into the Geneva and Mirpur refugee camps.
Here is one proof.
No where in the Urdu accounts or other journals written by the families is there any mention of looting by Indian troops. The looting was done by the MB and general criminals.
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