[51]: 13–14 [52] To overcome the Bengali domination and prevent formation of the central government in Islamabad, the controversial One Unit programme established the two wings of East and West Pakistan.

[54] The East Pakistan's Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman stressed his political position by presenting his Six Points and endorsing the Bengalis' right to govern.

[60][61] Mass arrests of dissidents began and, after several days of strikes and non-cooperation, the Pakistani military, led by Lieutenant-General Tikka Khan, cracked down on Dhaka on the night of 25 March 1971.

The Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra (Free Bangladesh Radio Centre), which had broadcast Major Rahman's independence declaration, was relocated from Kalurghat in East Pakistan to India after the transmission building was shelled by Pakistani Sabre jets on 30 March 1971.

[78][79] By the end of April 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had asked the Indian Chief of Army Staff Gen Sam Manekshaw if he was ready to go to war with Pakistan.

[80][81] According to Manekshaw's own personal account, he refused, citing the onset of monsoon season in East Pakistan and also the fact that the army tanks were being refitted.

From 21 November, however, Indian forces with Mukti Bahini support entered East Pakistan and remained there in preparation for a formal war that India expected to launch on 6 December.

[86] On the evening of 3 December, at about 17:35, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) launched surprise pre-emptive strikes on eight Indian airfields,[94] including Agra, which was 480 kilometres (300 mi) from the border.

[citation needed] This air action marked the start of all-out war; Gandhi ordered the mobilisation of troops and launched a full-scale invasion of East Pakistan.

It eventually made some quick and initial gains, including the capture of around 15,010 km2 (5,795 sq mi)[7][8] of Pakistani territory; this land gained by India in Azad Kashmir, Punjab and Sindh sectors was later ceded in the Simla Agreement of 1972, as a gesture of goodwill[9] Casualties inflicted to Pakistan Army's I Corps, II Corps, and Pakistan Marines' Punjab detachment were very high, and many soldiers and marines perished due to lack of operational planning and lack of coordination within the marine-army formations against Indian Army's Southern and Western Commands.

[109] On 3 December, after the air strike carried out by the PAF, the 106 Infantry Brigade of the Pakistani forces under the command of Brig Mohammad Mumtaz Khan advanced towards the village of Hussainiwala with 2000 troops and artillery support.

[67] Before the formal beginning of hostilities on 3 December, on 23 November, the Indian Army conventionally penetrated the eastern fronts and crossed East Pakistan's borders to join their Bengali nationalist allies.

[121]: 156  Contrary to the 1965 war, which had emphasised set-piece battles and slow advances, this time the strategy adopted was a swift, three-pronged assault of nine infantry divisions with attached armoured units and close air support that rapidly converged on Dacca, the capital of East Pakistan.

[132] Pakistan countered the threat by sending the submarine PNS Ghazi, which sank off the coast of Visakhapatnam, due to an internal explosion, though whether this was triggered by Indian depth charges, diving to avoid them or some other reason has never been established.

[144]: 107  According to author Martin Bowman, "Libyan F-5s were reportedly deployed to Sargodha AFB, perhaps as a potential training unit to prepare Pakistani pilots for an influx of more F-5s from Saudi Arabia.

[citation needed] There was a problem over who would represent the Bangladesh government, as the three Bangladeshi battalion commanders - Lt Cols Shafiullah, Khaled Musharraf and Ziaur Rahman - were located too far away to be airlifted on time.

Ambassador to the United Nations, George H. W. Bush, introduced a resolution in the UN Security Council calling for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of armed forces by India and Pakistan.

[170][171] China was also critical of the Government of East Pakistan, led by its governor Lieutenant-General Tikka Khan, which used ruthless measures to deal with the Bengali opposition, and did not endorse the Pakistani position on that issue.

In July 1971 Golda Meir, Israel's prime minister, got Israeli arms manufacturer Shlomo Zabludowicz to provide India and the Mukti Bahini with mortars, ammunition and instructors.

[10][188] The war and subsequent independence of Bangladesh stripped Pakistan of more than half of its population, and with nearly one-third of its army in captivity, clearly established India's military and political dominance of the subcontinent.

[35] Mostly, Indian leaders seemed pleased by the relative ease with which they had accomplished their goals—the establishment of Bangladesh and the prospect of an early return to their homeland of the 10 million Bengali refugees who were the cause of the war.

[35] Colonel John Gill of National Defense University, US, remarks that, while India achieved a military victory, it was not able to reap the political fruits it might have hoped for in Bangladesh.

[40]In his book The 1971 Indo-Pak War: A Soldier's Narrative, Pakistan Army's Major General Hakeem Arshad Qureshi, a veteran of this conflict, noted: We must accept the fact that, as a people, we had also contributed to the bifurcation of our own country.

It was not a Niazi, or a Yahya, even a Mujib, or a Bhutto, or their key assistants, who alone were the cause of our break-up, but a corrupted system and a flawed social order that our own apathy had allowed to remain in place for years.

[210] Major-General Rao Farman wrote in his table diary: "Green land of East Pakistan will be painted red," which has been interpreted to mean that he planned to massacre Bengalis.

To address the economic disparity, the National Finance Commission system was established to equally distribute the taxation revenue among the four provinces, the large-scale nationalisation of industries and nationwide census were carried out in 1972.

[229] There had been reports of Bengali insurgents indiscriminately killing non-Bengalis throughout the East; however, neither side provided substantial proofs for their claims and both Bangladeshi and Pakistani figures contradict each other over this issue.

[241][246] The War Commission, however, rejected the charge that 200,000 Bengali girls were raped by the Pakistan Army, remarking, "It is clear that the figures mentioned by the Dacca authorities are altogether fantastic and fanciful," and cited the evidence of a British abortion team that had carried out the termination of "only a hundred or more pregnancies".

[95] The treaty also gave back more than 13,000 km2 of land that the Indian Army had seized in Pakistan during the war, though India retained a few strategic areas, including Turtuk, Dhothang, Tyakshi (earlier called Tiaqsi) and Chalunka of Chorbat Valley,[253][254] which was more than 883 km2.

The organisations include the BBC, Akashbani (All India Radio), International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Oxfam and Kolkata University Shahayak Samiti.