Lt General AAK Niazi (centre) signing the surrender documents in Dhaka on December 16,1971
Nagpur: The city is hosting the victory flame taken around the country to mark 50 years of the 1971 war with Pakistan till January 26. The event brings alive the story of the war ending with 93,000 Pakistani troops surrendering to India.
The most high-profile prisoner of war (POW) Lt General AAK Niazi who signed the surrender document was hosted not too far from Nagpur, five decades ago. For over two years, Niazi, who was the commander of the Pakistani forces on the eastern front, was kept at Jabalpur, 250km from the city.
During times when communication was slow, what was eventually reported in newspapers remained a less-known fact. With no social media, the word only spread by mouth and the story soon faded out of public memory.
Those days there was a buzz that it was close to the same establishment, where Niazi had undergone training as a young officer in pre-partition times, was now kept as a POW.
A typewritten note mentioning the administrative arrangement made for Niazi and six other senior officers’ confinement are on display at a museum maintained by the army ordnance corps (AOC). Among the other relics are the original death warrant of mutineer Mangal Pandey. The museum comes under the college of material management (CMM), a training arm of the AOC.
Then called the POW camp 100, it is now the Vijayanta block named after the Vijayanta tank that was deployed in the war.
The Vijayanta block, now much renovated since the POWs left, serves as an accommodation for officers coming to the CMM for training.
Officials here confirmed that Niazi and the others stayed at CMM. Those coming for courses are told that it’s the same place where Niazi was put up. However, the structure has changed a lot and only precincts remain to be identified. The pictures of the block or the noting at the museum were not shared with TOI for official reasons.
TOI was shown excerpts from Niazi’s own book ‘Betrayal In East Pakistan’, which an officer said matched with much of the details maintained by the army. The excerpts were also used for one of the internal presentations on the war history.
Niazi wrote, “Our living accommodation was in the bachelor officer’s quarters of some unit. One set was given to each officer consisting of a bedroom with an attached bathroom, a sitting room with a front veranda. The furnishing was adequate. There was surplus accommodation and so, we converted one into a mosque and other a mess.”
The area had barbed wire around with enough obstacles to prevent any escape, goes on the description. Niazi remembers getting a daily allowance of Rs140 in the form a token. He had access to books and speaks of a wall being built around the block to save him from being assassinated.
In his book, Niazi also claims of having met Major General Shahbegh Singh who had trained the Mukti Bahini and later sided with Sikh militants in 1980s.
TOI talked to a number of persons at random asking if they had any memories. Many only came to know from different sources only years after the POWs had left.
Sujoy Banerjee, who was a civilian officer of one of defence establishments, was indirectly involved in the arrangement as a civil defence worker. “Some of the official residences of the army officers were vacated to accommodate the POWs. These officers were given alternative arrangements in other government premises,” he remembers.
“Being part of the civil defence during the war, I had the opportunity to interact with the army officials too. During the course of the work I had often reached close to the camp but did not get a chance to see Niazi or anyone else,” he said.
‘The fact that Niazi was there was known to only a limited number of persons. Of course at times people would gather near a hillock towards the camp to have a glimpse,” remembers Banerjee.
Banerjee says he got to hear stories that Niazi had a stint of training at Jabalpur before partition. Some of his old colleagues also made attempts to contact the POWs through official protocol.
There was a mention of POWs in the newspaper but to very limited extent during those days, says Banerjee, now in his eighties.
The presence of POWs remained to be more or less a secret to larger part of the town. Colonel Jude Roque (retd), now in his sixties, grew up in the city. Only during his posting at Sagar in 1999 that he came to know that Niazi was kept in his hometown.
Another 1971 veteran, also of a Colonel’s rank, said he was not posted in Jabalpur after the war so there was no reason for him to know that POWs were there.
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEMail
Recent Comments