Nation recalls horrors of Mar 25, \\\'71

The nation today recalls the horrors of the genocide carried out by the occupation forces against the country's people more than four decades ago. Thousands of occupation troops with tanks, cannons, grenades, mortars, field guns, machine guns and sub machine guns, mounted on tanks, military jeeps and lorries, swooped on the unarmed population of the then East Pakistan on the night of March 25 in 1971. The military crackdown on the unarmed Bangla speaking people on Mar 25 set off the nine-month independence struggle led by the Mujibnagar government in exile that ended with the emergence of independent Bangladesh on December 16, 1971. On this black night 43 years back, tanks, trucks, jeeps and combat vehicles of the occupation army rolled out of Dhaka Cantonment and a sleeping city woke up to the rattle of heavy weapons fire. The occupation soldiers attacked dormitories of Dhaka University, the then East Pakistan Rifles headquarters at Peelkhana and Rajarbagh Police Lines as part of its infamous ‘Operation Search Light,’ killing thousands of unarmed Bangalees. They also killed innocent Bangalees at Shankhari Bazar, Rayer Bazar, Mohammadpur, Azimpur, many areas in Old Dhaka, Mirpur and other cities and towns on that night which is considered one of the worst genocides in modern history, according to a news agency.