The Betrayal of East Pakistan

Lieutenant-General A.A.K. Niazi of the Eastern Command was the man whose fate it was to direct the operation which resulted in the dismemberment of Pakistan.  Many books have been written about that unforgettable years in Pakistani’s history, 1971 and the events that it spawned.  But finally one of the main actors of the drama has volunteered his own account of the events leading to the birth of Bangladesh.  Was General Niazi a coward, a hero, or the victim of an unjust fate?  In this book he has exercised a basic human right, that of voicing his own version in order to clear his name.  Inter alia he has summoned up questions which through manipulation or neglect had either disappeared from the public mind or had settled down comfortably as facts of history.  Was it an army of 93,000 soldiers that laid down arms in that fateful surrender?  Did the surrender take place at the bidding of Niazi, because he and his soldiers did not wish to fight any more?  Just what were the odds against which the Pakistan Army was fighting in the West?  Who is being protected by the secrecy which continues to surround the Hamood-ur-Rehman Commission Report, and why are the people still deprived of their right to know and to judge?  This book fills a huge gap in the recorded history of the period, which could hardly be considered complete without the contribution of such a major protagonist.