Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 - Wikipedia
The Indian campaign employed "
blitzkrieg" techniques, exploiting weakness in the enemy's positions and bypassing opposition, and resulted in a swift victory.
[130]:802 Faced with insurmountable losses, the Pakistani military capitulated in less than a fortnight and psychological panic spread in the Eastern Command's military leadership.
[130]:802 Subsequently, the Indian Army encircled Dacca and ultimately issued an ultimatum to surrender in "30-minutes" time window on 16 December 1971.
[131] Upon hearing the ultimatum, the Pakistan Eastern Command led by its commander Lieutenant-General
A.A.K. Niazi stationed in East Pakistan surrendered without putting a fight or offering any resistance.
[129] On 16 December 1971, Pakistan ultimately called for unilateral ceasefire and surrendered its
combined military to Indian Army– hence ending the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971.
[129]
Surrender of Pakistan Eastern Command in East Pakistan
Main articles:
Instrument of Surrender (1971) and
East Pakistan Military Command
Officially, the Instrument of Surrender of
Pakistan Eastern Command stationed in East Pakistan was signed between the Lieutenant General
Jagjit Singh Aurora, the
GOC-in-C of
Indian Eastern Command and Lieutenant-General
A.A.K. Niazi, the Commander of the Pakistan Eastern Command, at the
Ramna Race Course in Dhaka at 16:31Hrs
IST on 16 December 1971.
[132]:156–157 As the
surrender was accepted by Lieutenant-General Aurora without a word, the surrounding crowds on the race course started shouting
anti-Pakistan slogans and there were reports of abuses aimed at the surrendering commanders of Pakistani military.
[132]:157
[133][
self-published source]
Following the surrender, the Indian Army took approximately 90,000 Pakistani servicemen and their Bengali supporters as
POWs, making it the largest surrender since
World War II.
[132]:157 Initial counts were recorded as ~79,676 war prisoners who were the uniformed personnel, and overwhelming majority of war prisoners were officers, most of them were in the
Army and
Navy, while relatively small number of
Air Force and
Marines; others in larger number were being served in the
paramilitary.
[134] it was recorded that the ~55,692 were belonged to
Pakistan Army, 16,354 Paramilitary, 5,296 Police, 1,000 Navy and 800 PAF.
[135]
The remaining prisoners were civilians who were either family members of the military personnel or collaborators (
razakars). The
Hamoodur Rahman Commission and the
POW Investigation Commission reports instituted by Pakistan lists the Pakistani POWs as follows: Apart from soldiers, it was estimated that 15,000 Bengali civilians were also made prisoners of war.
[136]