and terrorized the demonstrators in Dhaka and jailed many of the leaders would lower the tempo of the agitation and create a climate for more reasonable negotiations. This piece of intelligence seemed to have a prophetic quality which Bhutto may have shared with Yahya Khan since it was this false assumption which appears to have drawn the army into military adventure on 25March, 1971.
During this period Col. Yasin of the Pakistan Army and Mr. S. Huda then in the T & T department both brothers in law to Prof. Nurul Islam were regular visitors to his house. Col. Yasin was in charge of supplies to the Pakistan forces in Dhaka. He was therefore in a position to supply a list of the food suppliers to the Pak army in Dhaka. This list was passed on to the party volunteers who then visited these suppliers and persuaded some of them to cut off supplies to the cantonment. There was a more sinister aftermath to these exchanges. After the army assault on 25 March, both Col. Yasin and Huda were picked up by the army. Huda was kept in custody in Dhaka where he was interrogated under torture and asked to confess to conspiring with Prof. Islam and myself and action on behalf of the Awami League to set up a telecommunications link with India. This totally fabricated charge found its way into the charge sheet for treason drawn up against Bangabandhu for which he was put on trial for his life during 1971.
Col. Yasin faced a worse fate. He was taken into custody. But in his case he was transferred to Lahore where he was interrogated under torture with a view to forcing him to bear false witness against Bangabandhu in his trial. Both these Victims owed their fate to their chance encounters with Prof. Islam and myself in those days in March.
From the time that negotiations were begun between Yahya and Mujib, some of us were drawn in to back up the Awami League team which consisted of Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmad and Kamal Hassain. The team was supposed to be negotiating an interim constitutional arrangement with Yahya's teams of experts which was made up by Major General Peerzada, Justice Cornelius and M.M-Ahmed. We would sit with the AL team after each session to take note of suggestions made by Yahya's team and to put forward our responses or our own substantive contribution. These involved long sessions including some with Bangabandhu. There was one climatic session which went on in the chamber of Dr. Kamal Hosssain in Motijheel, where the AI high command and its advisers worked all night to formulate the final negotiation position for the talks the next day. Our last contribution was to sit over the handwritten amendments of M.M. Ahmed to the proposal prepared the night before. The final position taken by the Yahya team indicated that at least on economic issues an agreement could be reached. The expectation was that on the 24th March, General Peerzada would convene the final session of the negotiations, following which an announcement would be made to the press. The next 2 days were spent waiting for the convening of this session. It was only on 25th that we learnt that M.M. Ahmed had already left for West Pakistan the night before. Apparently he too had been waiting for the meeting but was abruptly told by Peerzada that his work had been concluded that along with Justice Cornelius he could leave Dhaka. The substance of the negotiations is not discussed here as I have given my own indication of what went on in my article, 'Negotiation for Bangladesh' which I
