পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (সপ্তম খণ্ড).pdf/৫২

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বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র : সপ্তম খণ্ড
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 Additional manpower and resources became available between 26 March and 6 April. During this period there arrived two divisional headquarters (9 Division, 16 Division), five brigade headquarters, one commando and twelve infantry battalions. They had all left their heavy equipment in West Pakistan as they were to quell a rebellion rather than fight a proper was. Thrce morc infantry battalions and two mortar batteries arrived on 24 April and 2 May respectively. The paramilitary forces funneled into East Pakistan between 10 April and 21 April included two wings each of East Pakistan Civil Armed Forces (E.P.C.A.F.) and West Pakistan Rangers (W.P.R), besides a sizcable number of Scouts from the North West Frontier. They were mainly taken in place of defecting East Pakistan Rifles and police.

 Whatever reinforcements arrived from West Pakistan, were used to complete operation SEARCHLIGHT which was never formally closed but was deemed to have achieved its end by the middle of April when all major towns in the province had been secured.

 The major towns were secured on the following dates:

  (10 April), Pabna (10 April), Sylhet (10 April), Ishurdi (11 April). Narsingdi (12 April), Chandraghona (13 April), Rajshahi (15 April), Thakurgaon (15 April). Kushtia (16 April), Laksham (16 April), Chuadanga (17 April), Brahamanbaria (17 April), Darsana (19 April), IIilli (21 April), Satkhia (21 April), Golundu (21 April). Dohazari (22 April), Bogra (23 April). Rangpur (26 April). Noakhali (26 April), Santahar (27 April), Sirajganj (27 April), Maulvi Bazar (28 April), Cox's Bazar (10 May), Hatia (11 May).

 I have not been able to collect the figures of casualties suffered or inflicted during operation SEARCHLIGHT except those I have mentioned in the course of this narration. But I can vouch for the strength of my assessment that the number of lives lost in the clashes barely touched the four-figure mark. It the foreign press made the world believe that several million people perished, the blame lies with those who expelled the foreign press from Dacca on 26 March (evening) and forced them to base their stories on the fantasy of Indian propagandists or the whims of opinionated tourists. If the foreign journalists had been allowed to stay in East Pakistan after 25 March, even the most biased among them would have witnessed a reality which, through tragic, was far less gruesome than what appeared in their stories.