NEW DELHI, May 3: The Indian general known as the architect of the 1971 war with Pakistan that led to the birth of Bangladesh as an independent nation died here on Tueday, the army said. Lt-Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora died of heart failure in a New Delhi hospital at the age of 92. He is survived by a son and daughter.

Aurora’s funeral will take place Thursday with full military honours, an army spokesman said. When Gen Niazi died last year, Aurora remembered him as a man of few words.

“I am sad. I came to know him first when we were together at a college in Quetta and after that I met him during the Bangladesh war. He has been a quiet chap,” Aurora said. Aurora retired some 35 years ago, the army said.

During his retirement, Aurora championed India’s Sikh minority cause. He was critical of then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s decision in 1984 to send troops into the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, the Golden Temple, in Amritsar to flush out militants.—AFP