The nation will recall the “Black Night of March 25” today in commemoration of the cowardly attack on Bangalis and genocide in Dhaka city by the barbarous Pakistani occupation forces in 1971.
On the fateful night, the Pakistani military junta resorted to genocide in Dhaka, the provincial capital of the then East Pakistan, to implement their blueprint to negate the Awami League’s election mandate of 1970.
In their dreadful attack dubbed as “Operation Searchlight,” the Pakistani occupation forces mercilessly killed the Bangali members of the East Pakistan Rifles and police, students and teachers as well as thousands of common people in the city.
The Pakistani occupation forces killed people indiscriminately, torched houses, properties and looted shops, business establishments and carried out destruction throughout East Pakistan that night.
Writing about the attack, American journalist Robert Payne said at least 7,000 people were killed and 3,000 others were arrested on the night of the crackdown that started in Dhaka.
In the wake of military crackdown, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who became the undisputed leader of the then Pakistan, declared the independence of Bangladesh through EPR wireless at 12:30am on March 26 from his residence at Road 32 in Dhanmondi.
He also called upon the people to build a united resistance. Soon he was arrested by the Pakistani military junta in a bid to stop the liberation movement, and was taken to the then West Pakistan where he was held in a dark condemned prison cell for the entirety of the Liberation War.
Different political parties and socio-cultural organisations have chalked out elaborate programmes in observance of the Black Night to pay homage to the March 25 martyrs.
