When freedom came home: A 12-year-old’s memory of Victory Day

It was the middle of the night; a series of thudding noises woke me up. I was gripped with a strange sense of excitement, one that was mixed with mortal fear. After all, I was only 12 years old. 

Everyone else in our three-storey building in the Azimpur colony, bordering Lalbag in old Dhaka, seemed to be up as well. Hushed voices enquired what was happening, until the voices were hushed no more. 

"Look, so many planes," exclaimed one while pointing to the sky through a window on the first-floor landing.

I rushed to one of our windows and looked up. The sky seemed to be filled with glowing red balls, all steadily going up. They were not going up in a straight line, more like in an arc, until they disappeared. Later, I learned that those red balls were not planes, but tracer shells fired by anti-aircraft guns. 

The confusion and excitement caused by the red balls flying through the dark, December sky soon gave way to real fear. Unseen to the naked eye, there were real planes in the sky, and the bombs they carried soon began to drop. 

Most of the bombing happened miles away from where we lived, but in the dead of night, the explosions sounded so loud that it felt like our very building was the target. 

That was the night of 3 December 1971. The Indian Air Force had finally launched its attack on Pakistani military targets in Dhaka. 

The wider war, which the Pakistanis started on the night of 25 March through murderous assaults across Dhaka, had finally come back to the city. This time, the Pakistani military was the prey and the Indians the predators. 

Dogfights in the sky

The next day was extraordinary — the sense of excitement from the previous night was heightened manifold, but this time the fear was gone. As we watched Indian warplanes swoop down from the blue sky and strike targets in the northern part of the city — where the military cantonment and Pakistan Air Force base were located — the fear was replaced by a feeling of exhilaration.

The attacks continued through the morning and afternoon. Some of the Indian planes were in traditional camouflage, but some seemed unpainted. High up in the cloudless sky, the sun sometimes reflected off the bare steel fuselage or delta-shaped wings of the fighters. 

Soon, we were looking out for the white flashes high up in the sky. There were orange flashes, too, but those were something else. Orange flash meant some kind of explosion — perhaps a plane getting hit? The thrill of witnessing an actual dogfight was just too much excitement for a 12-year-old. 

Those white flashes in the sky above Dhaka heralded the beginning of the end of Pakistani occupation.

We had no way of telling who had the upper hand in the sky — the PAF or IAF. But sure enough, the low-level dives towards Pakistani military positions did not relent throughout the day. 

At one point, four silver coloured, delta-winged aircraft swooped low over Azimpur towards Dhaka airport in the north. Moments later, big towering puffs of black smoke went up on the horizon, followed by sunlight flickering off metal frames as the planes pulled up. 

Governor House hit

After the first two or three days, the Pakistan Air Force's F-86 Sabre jets disappeared. Some were probably shot down in dogfights, some destroyed on the ground, and others simply abandoned. 

The PAF had rightly concluded that continued resistance would be suicidal and decided to evacuate their surviving pilots to the west. 

The Indian Air Force also suffered losses — some to ground fire, and some shot down in dogfights high above the city. 

Within days, the IAF — flying mostly MiG-21s and SU-7s — began to dominate the sky practically unchallenged. The threat from the ground also dissipated, possibly because the Pakistani gunners began to run out of ammunition. 

As a result, the Indian jets could pick targets at will and attack them from such a low altitude that Dhaka residents watching from their windows and rooftops could clearly see the pilots. 

One of the most celebrated of such attacks occurred in the middle of the month, when SU-7s fired rockets into the Governor House in the city centre, shaking the puppet provincial government to its core. 

The audacious approach of the Indian pilots delivered a clear message to the Pakistani military — the game was over, and their end was near. For Dhaka residents, the IAF's dominance delivered quite a different message — the light at the end of the tunnel was now burning bright, and the day of deliverance, of liberation, was near.  

That day came on 16 December. 

For the previous 267 days, we had spent the evenings listening to the Swadhin Bangla radio station — daily reports of resistance by the Mukti Bahini, speeches of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, inspiring songs, rebellious poetry recitals, light-hearted satire mocking the Pakistanis. 

Finally, the darkness was about to come to an end. 

Yahya's gamble, Indira's checkmate

Earlier on 3 December, the Pakistan Air Force had launched attacks on at least eight Indian airbases in the west. The impact of those attacks was so minimal that they could justifiably be described as "desultory." But they provided the then Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi with the justification to launch her own, devastating and lightning-fast offensive in the east. 

The then Pakistani president General Yahya Khan was, no doubt, well briefed on the build-up of Indian forces along the eastern border, preparing for an offensive. It is possible that Khan gambled on initiating attacks in the west, hoping to divert Indian attention—and forces—away from East Pakistan. 

The gamble failed. 

Indian forces proved capable of fighting on both fronts, rapidly achieving their objective in the east with the help of Bangladeshi Mukti Bahini. 

There were strong rumours circulating in our neighbourhood the day before the 16th that the Indian and Mukti Bahini forces were on the outskirts of the city, and a Pakistani surrender was imminent. 

In the morning of the 16th, I remember looking out of the window in the far corner of our first-floor flat, which looked out to a long road that went all the way to the end of the colony, towards Pilkhana Road. 

In the distance, an elderly man with a white beard, wearing a white panjabi, was slowly walking up. He was waving his walking stick in the air and shouting, "Joy Bangla! Joy Bangla!"

I was quite horrified at first. Shouting "Joy Bangla" openly in an occupied city was akin to painting a target on your back. But the old man's open defiance told me we had reached the end of the tunnel. 

Welcoming Indian troops

By mid-morning, people from various buildings had started to come out and mingle on the roads and playing fields. Some of my friends said Indian troops were moving through the city. So we decided to venture out to have a look. 

Close to the Polashi intersection, we met the first convoy of Indian troops. The convoy — olive green painted trucks and jeeps — was, in fact, stuck. Hundreds of people gathered around each vehicle, shaking the soldiers'  hands, clambering onto the trucks and jeeps to slap them on the back. 

We walked on, towards New Market, but suddenly panic set in. A loud sound of gunfire rang out, and people started running back from the New Market area. We waited and saw a column of Pakistani soldiers marching towards us, looking quite nervous with guns at the ready. 

Indian soldiers were on the road, trying to keep the crowd back, to allow the Pakistani troops to pass. Late,r I learnt that those soldiers were going to the Pilkhana EPR camp to lay down their arms and surrender. The Indian soldiers had the job of preventing crowds from getting to them. 

After the New Market panic, we decided to return home. No one wanted to get hurt on the day of liberation. The day was meant only for celebration.

Sabir Mustafa is a former Head of BBC Bangla and a former Managing Editor of VOA Bangla. The writer can be contacted at: sabir.mustafa@gmail.com. Follow on X: @Sabir59.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.