THE Pakistan Army surrendered on Dec 16, 1971, in Dhaka. But the war in West Pakistan continued for another day. Some of the senior officers in West Pakistan, for face-saving and to earn some personal gains, committed the blunder of launching units in counter-attacks ill-prepared in various sectors.

Two glaring examples are: 8 Armoured Brigade’s counter-attack in Bara Pind and 35 Frontier Force’s attack in the same sector. In both the cases, unit commanders/junior commanders were sacrificed by the incompetent brigade/division and corps commander in the Sialkot sector.

An excellent book has been written by Col Imtiaz Ul Haque about the battle. Col Imtiaz participated as company commander in these attacks and was also wounded. The officer has given a detailed account of the battle.

The unit sacrificed its lives due to the failures in command and staff planning at all levels. This is evident from the unit’s move from Chaman, Balochistan, on Sept 29, 1971, to the desert in Sindh; thereafter on Dec 4, 1971, to Fort Abbas, then to Sialkot sector under 1 Corps on Dec 14, then in the evening of Dec16 to Pindi Purbian for counter-attack on the morning of Dec 17 in the Jarpal area. The unit kept shuttling between three different brigade areas from Dec 14 to 17, with no clear orders.

The commanding officer was denied any reconnaissance of the objective in daylight. What an example of leadership failure, poor staff planning at GHQ and command failure at corps/division and brigade level.

Was this attack really needed after surrender on Dec 16 and a ceasefire between Pakistan and India in the afternoon of Dec 17, 1971?

Col Akram Raja, the commanding officer embraced martyrdom along with another three officers, a junior commissioned officer, and 56 non-commissioned officers and jawans. The Bengali officers of the unit fought gallantly alongside their West Pakistani brethren and Lt Shahid Ullah from East Pakistan embraced martyrdom.

The Hamoodur Rahman Commission had recommended action against all the commanders from corps commander down to brigade level but no action was taken against anyone.

I wish the book had been published by the author some time in the late 1970s or at least when the author had finalised the draft and got the approval of GHQ for its publication in 1987.

LT-COL (r) M. SHAHBAZ THUTHAAL
Lahore