পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (তৃতীয় খণ্ড).pdf/৮৩৪

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বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ তৃতীয় পত্র

 Senator William Saxbe in his speech in the United States Senate on May 11, said, “Behind the smoke-screen of the negotiations, the strength of the largely Punjabi West Pakistan Army was increased, and its full force was unleashed on unarmed Bengalis in a manner and on a scale which Dr. Rohde and many other eye-witnesses had described as a variable bloodbath, mass slaughter and genocide."

 THE TIMES, London on July 20, says “There is not much doubt that by the middle of March the use of armed force, as a final option was firmly implanted in the minds of the President and his advisers. A large scale air lift of troops from the West Wing-though absolutely denied by the military authorities in Dacca was carried out clandestinely throughout the month."

 NEWSWEEK Magazine in a cover page story under the heading Bengal: The Murder of a People' writes on August 2, 1971 “weeks before the Yahya-Mujib meeting actually took place the President and his right-hand man Lt. Gen. Tikka Khan were already mapping out plans for Mujib's arrest, the dissolution of Awami League and the slaughter of Bengali nationalists."

 The Magazine further writes “Tikka Khan apparently pursuaded Yahya to buy time for the Army to build up its strength in Bengal. Accordingly, Yahya made his bid for discussions with Mujib. And while the two leaders talked-and Bengalis as well as the world at large looked for a compromise that might save Pakistan-the army pulled off a logistics coup. Flying the long over-water route around Southern India with Boing 707s commandeered from Pakistan International Airways, the Army doubled its troops strength in Bengal to 60,000 men. When Tikka gave the word that all was ready, Yahya flew out of Dacca. And that very night, the bomber of Baluchistan (Tikka Khan) unleashed his troops"

 TIME Magazine published on August 2, 1971:

 "With the constitutional assembly scheduled to convene in March, Yahya began a covert troop build-up flying soldiers dressed in civilian clothes to the East at night. Then he postponed the assembly, explaining that it could not meet until he could determine precisely how much power and autonomy Mujib wanted for the East. Mujib had not espoused full independence, but a loosened semblance of national unity under which each wing would control its own taxation, trade and foreign aid. To Yahya and the generals, that was unacceptable. On March 25, Yahya broke off the meetings he had been holding and flew back to Islamabad. Five hours later, soldiers using howitzers, tanks and rockets launched troop attacks in half a dozen sections of Dacca."

 TIME Magazine of August 23 writes, “In last December's elections for a Constitutional Assembly, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League won an overwhelming 167 of 169 seats in the East. That was enough to guarantee Mujib a majority in the 313-seat National Assembly, and ensured that he would have become Prime Minister of Pakistan. It was also enough to alarm President Yahya Khan and the West Pakistan establishment, which has run the geographically divided country since its partition in 1947. Yahya and Co. feared that Mujib's ascendancy would mean far greater