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Values or virus? Streaks of fire leaping from the plane would explode over the eastern dome of the Governor House and flames shooting from the ground would explode in the sky as the Pakistan army gunners tried to down these planes. The Indian forces had yet to cross the rivers before they could reach Dhaka.
This was not easy as the river bridges had been destroyed. The city wore an uneasy calm and the atmosphere was charged with tension.
Fear and anxiety was gradually but steadily tightening its grip on the citizens. On that harrowing day, just after Fajr prayers, there was a knock on the door of our flat. I opened the door and saw it was our Bengali neighbour Mallu Bhai. His actual name was Muhammad Ali Khan but everybody affectionately called him by his nickname. He lived with his family in the only other flat on our floor. This handsome man was usually a calm and collected person but today he appeared wildly excited.
His eyes were shining, his cheeks were flushed and his voice was loud and shrill. It was late in the evening, nearing dusk, when we heard a loud commotion outside. I rushed to the balcony but what I saw made me freeze with terror. A large unruly mob brandishing bamboo sticks and leather whips was coming down the road to our building. Their faces were distorted with hate and fury. This time they have given a [test] as proof to check the veracity of their announcement.
They say that our planes will fly low over Dhaka but there will be no fire from the ground. The Indian Army has not reached Dhaka. They are still far away. So then, why should Gen Niazi surrender?
And to whom is he supposed to surrender? Despite my bravado, I was badly shaken. I went back inside my flat in a state of trepidation. I told my family the news. We kept hoping and praying that it would turn out to be false news. Every now and then, one of us would go to the balcony and scan the sky for Indian planes. The first few sorties were made at considerable altitude but they soon started to fly lower and lower until we could clearly see the pilots.
In stark contrast to previous routine, not a single shot was fired on them from the ground. It was the most bizarre scene. We did not see, as we used to see, flames leaping from the ground to attack these planes. Instead, large numbers of pamphlets were being thrown from the planes.
Printed in English, Bengali and Urdu, they invited the public to Ramna Race Course ground in the afternoon to witness the surrender of the Pakistan Army. Intrigued and hopeful, Bengalis flocked to the race course. East Pakistan died and Bangladesh was born. At the end of the ceremony, the mammoth crowd that spilled out from the Race Course Ground was on an ecstatic high.
The euphoria of freedom kicked in an adrenaline rush, making the crowd boisterous. But no one dared to attack the Pakistani troops; most of them were still armed. So, in their murderous mood, the mob spread out in the city to kill and plunder the supporters of Pakistan and the Pakistani army — the Biharis. A strange celebration of independence.
An estimated , Biharis lived in Dhaka city. In all these localities, Biharis were in a minority amounting to five to seven percent of the population. That night, the Bihari residents of every locality were attacked by the wild mobs who were on a killing, burning and looting spree.
As I looked on, they entered a building that stood very close to the right of ours. On the top floor of that building lived Mr Yahya, a Bihari, with his family. The mob went straight to his flat, broke open the door, locked his wife and children into a room and dragged out Yahya Sahib. They started to beat him savagely and then pushed him towards the stairs. I then saw the mob emerge from the staircase and on to the road.
Yahya Sahib appeared a bloody mess. He could hardly stand on his legs. Soon he fell to the ground. The mob was now kicking him like a football. They kicked him from the road on to the open grassy space in front of our building. The beating and kicking carried on until he finally died. I saw some of them jumping on his dead body. Then, with a mighty roar, this bloodthirsty, demonic mob headed towards our building and into the entrance of the staircase.
Seeing all this terrified me so much that I completely lost my nerve and started to weep. My father may Allah rest his soul in peace in heaven became angry with me. No good government can be an alternative to self government. Who could then question the birth right of the East or West to ask for managing their affairs as they thought best.
Demand for regional authority and then independence was natural. There were a number of factors which lead to the fall of Dhaka. We quite often see the debates on televisions in which they try to blame one person for the fall of Dhaka. One has to understand that the fall of Dhaka took place in but the differences had started between the East and West at the time of inception of Pakistan. Some people take it back to the time when Urdu was made the national language of Pakistan.
One of the factors was that the pace of economic development in the East was much slower than the West. This could not go unnoticed and their public servants, which constituted the most powerful silent force, did not fail to see where and how.
They thought that not only East Pakistan had not been given its due share, rather it had been treated as a colony. Social and economic justice was one of the basic demands of people and lack of complete satisfaction on that score has been the great cause of discontent. There were a number of key players in which lead to fall of Dhaka, the prominent ones being Mujib, Bhutto, Ayub and Yahya.
In Mujib announced his controversial six point political and economic program for East Pakistani provincial autonomy. Foreign journalists had already been expelled, and Pakistan was also keen to publicise atrocities committed by the other side. Awami League supporters had massacred tens of thousands of civilians whose loyalty they suspected, a war crime that is still denied by many today in Bangladesh. Eight journalists, including Mascarenhas, were given a day tour of the province.
When they returned home, seven of them duly wrote what they were told to. Yvonne Mascarenhas remembers him coming back distraught: "I'd never seen my husband looking in such a state. He was absolutely shocked, stressed, upset and terribly emotional," she says, speaking from her home in west London. Clearly it would not be possible to do so in Pakistan.
All newspaper articles were checked by the military censor, and Mascarenhas told his wife he was certain he would be shot if he tried. Pretending he was visiting his sick sister, Mascarenhas then travelled to London, where he headed straight to the Sunday Times and the editor's office.
Evans remembers him in that meeting as having "the bearing of a military man, square-set and moustached, but appealing, almost soulful eyes and an air of profound melancholy". Mascarenhas told him he had been an eyewitness to a huge, systematic killing spree, and had heard army officers describe the killings as a "final solution". Evans promised to run the story, but first Yvonne and the children had to escape Karachi. They had agreed that the signal for them to start preparing for this was a telegram from Mascarenhas saying that "Ann's operation was successful".
Yvonne remembers receiving the message at three the next morning. I had to leave everything behind. We were crying so much it was like a funeral," she says. To avoid suspicion, Mascarenhas had to return to Pakistan before his family could leave.
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