On this day in 1971, Awami League chief Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman met with Pakistan President Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan over a lengthy closed-door meeting at the President’s House in Dhaka.
In the morning, Bangabandhu left his home for the meeting in a white car with a black flag hoisted on the flag stand to protest the crackdown on Bengalis during the non-cooperation movement that began earlier in the month.
Speaking to the press after the meeting, Bangabandhu said he and Yahya had talked about pressing political issues and they would meet again the next day.
Earlier, Yahya Khan came to Dhaka from what was then West Pakistan under tight security on March 15. He was received at the airport by the then-newly appointed military governor Lieutenant General Tikka Khan, who would gain infamy as the “Butcher of Bengal”.
No journalist or Bangladeshi was allowed at the airport.
The meeting on March 16 was prominently covered by both local and international media. Following the meeting, the American periodical Newsweek in an analysis said the separation of Pakistan and Bangladesh was only a question of time.
Also on March 16, 1971, India banned all Pakistani aircraft from overflying Indian airspace. The move came following the hijacking of an Indian aircraft to Lahore and its subsequent blowing up by the hijackers.