THIS is apropos the article ‘Haunted by a distant past’ (April 16) wherein Abbas Nasir has left no stone unturned to malign the army. In a highly-biased write-up, he depicted Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as an honest and upright person.

During the parleys held between Sheikh Mujeeb and Yahya Khan from March 12, 1971, onwards when Bhutto was called to East Pakistan to help ease the tension, he privately urged Mujeeb not to agree with Yahya Khan.

The final damage was done when Bhutto advised Yahya Khan to launch a military operation against the people of East Pakistan. When the operation was underway he witnessed it atop Dhaka Intercontinental Hotel.

Not only that but when he arrived in Karachi from Dhaka, he made that infamous statement “thanks God Pakistan has been saved.” Instead of condemning the military operation, he gloated over the killings of his own countrymen.

A bureaucrat, who had served in Sylhet as assistant commissioner in United Pakistan, visited Bangladesh in 2014 on the invitation of his Sargodhian friends. He wrote an account of his visit in Dawn. He wrote that he visited Dhaka University where he had discussions with friends. Some Bengali friends, unhesitatingly, remarked that actually the founding father of Bangladesh was Bhutto, not Mujeeb.

Safir Siddiqui

South Dakota, USA

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2016