IK Speaks with a Forked Tongue

Asif Haroon Raja

Hypocrisy is at its height. Dr AQ Khan was heroically remembered by the PTI and cult followers of IK on the occasion of 28 May, celebrated as Yaum e Taqbeer, merely to undermine Nawaz Sharif. Efforts were made to convince the people that NS was reluctant to carry out nuclear tests and was forced by Gen Karamat.

If Dr AQ was the lone hero, why didn’t IK look after him, or visit him, when he was ruling the country? The seller of the idea of Riyasat e Madina didn’t have the courtesy to attend his funeral, or to offer condolences to his family, simply because Dr AQ was on the hit list of the US. He could have paid him tributes, when he played the drama of Anti- Americanism.

The PTI’s social media network is ridiculing the custodians of our nuclear arsenal and are jeering them, as to why they are not using the nuclear bomb against virulent India. They say that our nukes are useless and a liability for the nation. They have no answer when asked, which country other than the USA (1945) used it against an enemy country?

The drawing rooms jihadis fascinated by the woolly slogan of Haqiqi Azadi, never talk of Jihad in the Indian occupied Kashmir, or into India. In fact, the PTI regime gave a free hand to India to annex IOK, and the real jihadis who wanted to cross the LoC were blocked.

In this crime, Gen Bajwa was equally involved. He is on record saying that the Pak Army didn’t have fuel and logistics and was operationally unfit to wage a war in Kashmir.

Why this army secret was revealed before the big team of journalists, and why didn’t IK as the Executive Head object? He and IK were in collusion, and so was the Donald Trump administration. It was a case of betrayal.

The other crime was to secretly hobnob with Modi regime and to invite him to Pakistan in April 2021. I reckon, the heated up LoC and the LAC was too heavy a pressure for Gen Bajwa to sustain, and ceasefire agreement was quietly signed.

IK played into the hands of his sorcerer wife and he took important national decisions and posting/ transfers at her behest, which was a crime.

Traitor Sheikh Mujib is being heroised to insult the Pak Army. Justice Hamoodur Rehman, a Bengali, had carried out an inquest at the behest of Bhutto in 1974 on the East Pakistan debacle only, with a limited mandate and scope, and confining it to the military only. The main purpose of keeping the scope limited was to save Bhutto, who was among the principal accused.

The HCR was kept in the lockers. Bhutto hid critical pages of the Report containing his wrong doings in the bathroom of his Larkana House. Those were recovered by the FIA. The HCR was, however, discussed by the media off and on. The Staff College and the War College students wrote a research paper every year.

The Report had to be published in 2001 after the media leak, and the discussion heated up in various quarters. Serious flaws in the HCR were brought out.

I also scanned the report, which was in several big volumes. In my book ‘Roots of 1971 Tragedy’, published in 2005, I had carried out a critical analysis and gave my conclusions.

I wonder, why IK didn’t read it and never considered it necessary to discuss it to determine who was the traitor in 1971?

Why is he now asking the nation to read it after a lapse of 50 years and with what motives? He mischievously left a question mark, asking the people to determine whether Mujib, or Gen Yahya was the traitor?

He has no doubt about it because for the last one year, his media trolls are running a narrative on the fall of Dacca, with the single objective of glorifying Mujib as a hero and blaming Gen Yahya Khan for dishonouring the mandate of Awami League, and equating it with 8 Feb elections.

The elections results achieved by the AL in Dec 1970 were at the back of the mind of every PTI leader. Promised by their foreign patrons, they were anticipating similar results, and were sure to sweep the elections.

PTI was once again disappointed to see the results falling much short of its expectations, as it was after the 2013 elections. Hence the hullabaloo.

How come Gen Yahya was a traitor? When he was pandering to each and every demand of Mujib to appease the Bengalis, he was praised. When the streets of EP were being bloodied by the Mukti Bahini from 01 March 1971 onwards, and filled with bodies of Biharis, West Pakistanis and Pro-Pakistan Bengalis, and the girls and women were raped, Gen Yahya was booed for being soft and keeping his soldiers in cotton wools.

Gen Yahya launched Operation Searchlight with good intentions to save Pakistan from splintering. Like Bhutto, the whole of West Pakistan lauded him.

Lt Gen Niazi accepted the challenge and fought the Indian supported Muktis for nine months under extremely adverse conditions. It was a herculean job to distinguish between friend and foe, to fight the faceless enemy, and with tens of thousands of infiltrated Indian soldiers in the guise of Muktis. Law and order was restored by Jun 1971, which was an exceptional feat.

Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, and all the operational, technical, administrative tangibles against him, and cut off from the world, he faced the 14 times superior Indian military from 21 Nov 1971 onwards boldly.

Gen Yahya launched the counter offensive on the western front on 3 Dec at a time when Pakistan was all alone. He risked WP to release pressure on EP. Had the Polish resolution not torn by Bhutto, and was accepted, Pakistan Army wouldn’t have faced the humiliation on 16 Dec. There could have been a confederation between the two wings. Gen Yahya and Gen Niazi would have been war heroes.

The Bengalis could never have achieved independence at their own. The Indian military could never have captured EP if the Bengalis had not rebelled?

How come the counter insurgency of Pak Army against foreign aided rebels in EP was different and more ruthless than others? Do I have to quote examples to prove my point that no country deals with the rebels, mutineers and insurgents softly? The myths of 3 million killed and 200,000 raped have been busted.

What did Sheikh Mujib do? He was the one who asked pungent questions from the visiting Quaid in Apr 1948, and later led the language movement at the instigation of India. He secretly went to Agartala in 1963, sought arms and training facilities for training Mukti Bahini, and support from India, signed an agreement to wage armed insurgency to delink EP from WP, and by end 1967, he had prepared the militant force and a nucleus to fulfil his agenda.

In I968, he and Bhutto wilfully stoked unrest in both the provinces under a planned agenda to disrupt the Decade of Development and to bring down FM Ayub Khan.

The cobra in EP was let off the hook by the WP politicians and charged up Bengalis, when he was being tried by an open court for treason. He and 26 co-accused accepted their guilt.

His release made him a hero, and it gave fillip to his agenda of creating BD which was his dream. Listen to his interview given to David Frost in Jan 1972. He never wanted to rule united Pakistan, but his ambition was to rule BD.

Hundreds of books written by Indian and Bengali writers have corroborated this fact, but the Indian influenced Anti-Army Brigade in Pakistan, now joined by the PTI and the cult followers, think differently.

They are fixated with the Indo-Bangla narrative that Gen Yahya and his team were solely responsible for the debacle. Even HCR doesn’t say so. Its concluding remarks were that the combined failures of the leaders of WP and politico-socio-economic inequities during the period from 1947 to 1970. led to the division of Pakistan.

I wonder if they have read the three battle plans made by Col retd MA Osmani in March 1971, how to wrest EP.

Had the military operation not been launched on the midnight of 25 Mar 1971, the swarms of Mukti Bahini, armed Bengalis, six EB Regts, Police, EPR would have surrounded and attacked all the military garrisons at 6 a.m. on 25 March 1971, and slaughtered them. The army units had been locked up in barracks on the night of 2/3 March 1971 on the request of Mujib, which was accepted by Lt Gen Sahibzada Yaqub Khan.

Butchery of WP officers, JCOs serving in EPR deployed along the border and their families had started in the first week of March 1971, and a state within a state had been created.

The secessionists had two other plans; to seize power politically, gradually shift strategic assets including Navy to EP, demobilise the armed forces, inculcate germs of separation in other federating units, and then declare independence. The 3rd plan was to wage a civil war and to invite India to capture EP.

If we accept the tainted logic of IK that Gen Yahya was a traitor, it implies that all those who had taken part in the counter insurgency and the war in former East Pakistan to save the motherland, were also traitors.

After equating himself with Mujib, and equating Gen Yahya with Gen Asim, he has revealed his motives and future plans.

He and his foreign based media trollers, and his hawkish PTI leaders have been constantly berating Pakistan, national institutions and particularly the Army and the ISI leadership.

They are on record stating their wish to burn Pakistan, or to make Pakistan another Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen Sudan. They instigated the people for a Sri Lanka type uprising. They have been reiterating the wish of India to dismember Pakistan. PTI is behind every security crisis and has tied a knot with the TTP.

The cult followers, living in Europe and in the USA, badmouth the govt, the institutions and the Pak Army daily. They poison the ears of western policy makers to tighten the screws of Pakistan through sanctions and not to give loans. Their focus is on derailing the country and its economy.

‘Hum tou doobey hein sanam, tum ko bhi le doobein ge’. (We are sunk, we will sink you too).

Nothing good is expected from the Anarchist Party and the cult followers whose minds have been deeply cloned. Anyone daring to object to their odd cultish behaviour, puts his/her hands in the hornets nets and is stung viciously.

The writer is a retd Brig Gen, war veteran, defence, security and political analyst, international columnist, author of five books, takes part in TV talk shows, ex-Chairman Thinkers Forum Pakistan, patron-in-chief CDS Think Tank, Administrator Fact Check Think Tank. asifharoonraja@gmail.com

Asif Haroon Raja

Hypocrisy is at its height. Dr AQ Khan was heroically remembered by the PTI and cult followers of IK on the occasion of 28 May, celebrated as Yaum e Taqbeer, merely to undermine Nawaz Sharif. Efforts were made to convince the people that NS was reluctant to carry out nuclear tests and was forced by Gen Karamat.

If Dr AQ was the lone hero, why didn’t IK look after him, or visit him, when he was ruling the country? The seller of the idea of Riyasat e Madina didn’t have the courtesy to attend his funeral, or to offer condolences to his family, simply because Dr AQ was on the hit list of the US. He could have paid him tributes, when he played the drama of Anti- Americanism.

The PTI’s social media network is ridiculing the custodians of our nuclear arsenal and are jeering them, as to why they are not using the nuclear bomb against virulent India. They say that our nukes are useless and a liability for the nation. They have no answer when asked, which country other than the USA (1945) used it against an enemy country?

The drawing rooms jihadis fascinated by the woolly slogan of Haqiqi Azadi, never talk of Jihad in the Indian occupied Kashmir, or into India. In fact, the PTI regime gave a free hand to India to annex IOK, and the real jihadis who wanted to cross the LoC were blocked.

In this crime, Gen Bajwa was equally involved. He is on record saying that the Pak Army didn’t have fuel and logistics and was operationally unfit to wage a war in Kashmir.

Why this army secret was revealed before the big team of journalists, and why didn’t IK as the Executive Head object? He and IK were in collusion, and so was the Donald Trump administration. It was a case of betrayal.

The other crime was to secretly hobnob with Modi regime and to invite him to Pakistan in April 2021. I reckon, the heated up LoC and the LAC was too heavy a pressure for Gen Bajwa to sustain, and ceasefire agreement was quietly signed.

IK played into the hands of his sorcerer wife and he took important national decisions and posting/ transfers at her behest, which was a crime.

Traitor Sheikh Mujib is being heroised to insult the Pak Army. Justice Hamoodur Rehman, a Bengali, had carried out an inquest at the behest of Bhutto in 1974 on the East Pakistan debacle only, with a limited mandate and scope, and confining it to the military only. The main purpose of keeping the scope limited was to save Bhutto, who was among the principal accused.

The HCR was kept in the lockers. Bhutto hid critical pages of the Report containing his wrong doings in the bathroom of his Larkana House. Those were recovered by the FIA. The HCR was, however, discussed by the media off and on. The Staff College and the War College students wrote a research paper every year.

The Report had to be published in 2001 after the media leak, and the discussion heated up in various quarters. Serious flaws in the HCR were brought out.

I also scanned the report, which was in several big volumes. In my book ‘Roots of 1971 Tragedy’, published in 2005, I had carried out a critical analysis and gave my conclusions.

I wonder, why IK didn’t read it and never considered it necessary to discuss it to determine who was the traitor in 1971?

Why is he now asking the nation to read it after a lapse of 50 years and with what motives? He mischievously left a question mark, asking the people to determine whether Mujib, or Gen Yahya was the traitor?

He has no doubt about it because for the last one year, his media trolls are running a narrative on the fall of Dacca, with the single objective of glorifying Mujib as a hero and blaming Gen Yahya Khan for dishonouring the mandate of Awami League, and equating it with 8 Feb elections.

The elections results achieved by the AL in Dec 1970 were at the back of the mind of every PTI leader. Promised by their foreign patrons, they were anticipating similar results, and were sure to sweep the elections.

PTI was once again disappointed to see the results falling much short of its expectations, as it was after the 2013 elections. Hence the hullabaloo.

How come Gen Yahya was a traitor? When he was pandering to each and every demand of Mujib to appease the Bengalis, he was praised. When the streets of EP were being bloodied by the Mukti Bahini from 01 March 1971 onwards, and filled with bodies of Biharis, West Pakistanis and Pro-Pakistan Bengalis, and the girls and women were raped, Gen Yahya was booed for being soft and keeping his soldiers in cotton wools.

Gen Yahya launched Operation Searchlight with good intentions to save Pakistan from splintering. Like Bhutto, the whole of West Pakistan lauded him.

Lt Gen Niazi accepted the challenge and fought the Indian supported Muktis for nine months under extremely adverse conditions. It was a herculean job to distinguish between friend and foe, to fight the faceless enemy, and with tens of thousands of infiltrated Indian soldiers in the guise of Muktis. Law and order was restored by Jun 1971, which was an exceptional feat.

Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, and all the operational, technical, administrative tangibles against him, and cut off from the world, he faced the 14 times superior Indian military from 21 Nov 1971 onwards boldly.

Gen Yahya launched the counter offensive on the western front on 3 Dec at a time when Pakistan was all alone. He risked WP to release pressure on EP. Had the Polish resolution not torn by Bhutto, and was accepted, Pakistan Army wouldn’t have faced the humiliation on 16 Dec. There could have been a confederation between the two wings. Gen Yahya and Gen Niazi would have been war heroes.

The Bengalis could never have achieved independence at their own. The Indian military could never have captured EP if the Bengalis had not rebelled?

How come the counter insurgency of Pak Army against foreign aided rebels in EP was different and more ruthless than others? Do I have to quote examples to prove my point that no country deals with the rebels, mutineers and insurgents softly? The myths of 3 million killed and 200,000 raped have been busted.

What did Sheikh Mujib do? He was the one who asked pungent questions from the visiting Quaid in Apr 1948, and later led the language movement at the instigation of India. He secretly went to Agartala in 1963, sought arms and training facilities for training Mukti Bahini, and support from India, signed an agreement to wage armed insurgency to delink EP from WP, and by end 1967, he had prepared the militant force and a nucleus to fulfil his agenda.

In I968, he and Bhutto wilfully stoked unrest in both the provinces under a planned agenda to disrupt the Decade of Development and to bring down FM Ayub Khan.

The cobra in EP was let off the hook by the WP politicians and charged up Bengalis, when he was being tried by an open court for treason. He and 26 co-accused accepted their guilt.

His release made him a hero, and it gave fillip to his agenda of creating BD which was his dream. Listen to his interview given to David Frost in Jan 1972. He never wanted to rule united Pakistan, but his ambition was to rule BD.

Hundreds of books written by Indian and Bengali writers have corroborated this fact, but the Indian influenced Anti-Army Brigade in Pakistan, now joined by the PTI and the cult followers, think differently.

They are fixated with the Indo-Bangla narrative that Gen Yahya and his team were solely responsible for the debacle. Even HCR doesn’t say so. Its concluding remarks were that the combined failures of the leaders of WP and politico-socio-economic inequities during the period from 1947 to 1970. led to the division of Pakistan.

I wonder if they have read the three battle plans made by Col retd MA Osmani in March 1971, how to wrest EP.

Had the military operation not been launched on the midnight of 25 Mar 1971, the swarms of Mukti Bahini, armed Bengalis, six EB Regts, Police, EPR would have surrounded and attacked all the military garrisons at 6 a.m. on 25 March 1971, and slaughtered them. The army units had been locked up in barracks on the night of 2/3 March 1971 on the request of Mujib, which was accepted by Lt Gen Sahibzada Yaqub Khan.

Butchery of WP officers, JCOs serving in EPR deployed along the border and their families had started in the first week of March 1971, and a state within a state had been created.

The secessionists had two other plans; to seize power politically, gradually shift strategic assets including Navy to EP, demobilise the armed forces, inculcate germs of separation in other federating units, and then declare independence. The 3rd plan was to wage a civil war and to invite India to capture EP.

If we accept the tainted logic of IK that Gen Yahya was a traitor, it implies that all those who had taken part in the counter insurgency and the war in former East Pakistan to save the motherland, were also traitors.

After equating himself with Mujib, and equating Gen Yahya with Gen Asim, he has revealed his motives and future plans.

He and his foreign based media trollers, and his hawkish PTI leaders have been constantly berating Pakistan, national institutions and particularly the Army and the ISI leadership.

They are on record stating their wish to burn Pakistan, or to make Pakistan another Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen Sudan. They instigated the people for a Sri Lanka type uprising. They have been reiterating the wish of India to dismember Pakistan. PTI is behind every security crisis and has tied a knot with the TTP.

The cult followers, living in Europe and in the USA, badmouth the govt, the institutions and the Pak Army daily. They poison the ears of western policy makers to tighten the screws of Pakistan through sanctions and not to give loans. Their focus is on derailing the country and its economy.

‘Hum tou doobey hein sanam, tum ko bhi le doobein ge’. (We are sunk, we will sink you too).

Nothing good is expected from the Anarchist Party and the cult followers whose minds have been deeply cloned. Anyone daring to object to their odd cultish behaviour, puts his/her hands in the hornets nets and is stung viciously.

The writer is a retd Brig Gen, war veteran, defence, security and political analyst, international columnist, author of five books, takes part in TV talk shows, ex-Chairman Thinkers Forum Pakistan, patron-in-chief CDS Think Tank, Administrator Fact Check Think Tank. asifharoonraja@gmail.com