made to hammer out a compromise, preserve democratic process, and facilitate the transfer of power. During the negotiations, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman initially escalated his mandate for provincial autonomy into a demand for Confederation. This meant that after the issue of the proposed proclamation, extinguishing Martial Law and transferring power, the five provinces of Pakistan would be cut adrift and national sovereignty would be virtually extinct.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman further demanded that the National Assembly must ab initio sit in two committees: one composed of members from East Pakistan, the other from West Pakistan. Later he developed this into a demand for two Constitutional conventions drawing up separate Constitution.
The intention was now unmistakably clear. The Awami League hardcore leadership had realized that neither the President nor other political parties would agree to a “Constitutional scuttling" of Pakistan, and these extremists without the knowledge or approval of their rank and file had long been making secret preparations for achievement of their goal by conspiracy and force. The conspiracy originally uncovered by the Agartala case was now fully under way. Volunteers were under training in every district in the garb of Sangram Parishads. Arms and ammunition from India had been smuggled in and stocked at strategic points all over the province, including the Jagannath Hall of Dacca University. An idea of how well-planned and well organized the Awami League move was can be gathered from the mortar fire which came from Jagannath Hall on the night of 25th-26th March and the appearance within 3 hours of innumerable barricades all over the city of Dacca on the night of the 25th March.
Though the Awami League failed to win over by persuasion, it sought to line up through Nazi-style tactics. A reign of terror was unleashed and unmentionable atrocities committed. The true dimensions of the killings directed and carried out by fascist elements of the Awami League are now becoming clear.
All evidence goes to show that the small hours of 26th March had been set as the zero hour for an armed uprising, and for the formal launching of “The Independent Republic of Bangladesh". The plan was to seize Dacca and Chittagong, lying astride the Army's air sea lifelines to West Pakistan. The Army at that time consisted of a Division of 18 battalions including 12 from West Pakistan, spread thinly over cantonments in the interior and deployed along the border with India. Arrayed against them were infiltrators from India and deserters from the East Pakistan Rifles, the East Bengal Regiment and other auxiliary forces equipped with mortars, recoilless rifles and heavy machine-guns, and according to, subsequent evidence, liberally supplied from across the Indian border.
The Awami League's bid for secession was now under way. Having already exhausted all avenues of peaceful transfer of power, the President now called upon the Armed Forces to do their duty, and fully restore the authority of the Government".
The call came none too soon. Barely a few hours before the Awami League's zero hour for action, the Armed Forces made a series of preemptive strikes around midnight of March 25–26, seized the initiative and saved the country.
