In the operations room of the Pakistan Army Divisional Headquarters at Comilla, 60 miles east of Dacca, two-inch letters in red proclaim the legend: He who guards his secrets attains a high goal” - Holy Koran. The goal may be at present be identified only as the “unity and integrity of Pakistan.” But the big secret that the Pakistan Army has been keeping - for fear of reprisals in West Pakistan and because of its own sense of shock - is an almost incredible story of mutiny and massacre which erupted on March 25 and 26 in East Pakistan.

It was then that the 176,000 armed and trained men of rebellious Bengali Army units, paramilitary forces and police - supported by armed Awami League members and students - attempted to give terrible practicality to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League rallying cry: “Bangladesh khali kurrow, Punjabi marhrou, ” (Clear Bangladesh, Kill the Punjabis). Ten days of piecing together the details in East Pakistan have revealed a huge and almost successful mutiny in the Pakistan Army and the brutal massacre of thousands of non-Bengali men, women and children. More than 20,000 bodies have been found so far in Bengal’s main towns, but the final count could top 100,000.

It was the Pakistan Army’s quick reflex, tighter discipline and better leadership which saved it from the mutineers on that bloody Thursday and Friday, immediately after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s protracted political talks with President Yahya Khan and West Pakistan political leaders had broken down. Evidence from prisoners later taken by the Army shows that painstaking preparations had been made for the big moment. Militant Bangladesh supporters planned to launch their independent republic after mid-day prayers on Friday (the Moslem Sabbath), March 26. To achieve this they planned to seize Dacca and Chittagong, the eastern terminals of the main air and sea links with West Pakistan, and to annihilate West Pakistani army personnel. The next step was to destroy bridges and rail links, which would prevent troop movements, before the rebels began “sorting out” the West Pakistani Army units in their isolated cantonments. Army families were to have been kept hostage as protection against retaliatory action, and for eventual exchange with Bengalis in West Pakistan.

The Pakistan Army’s Eastern Command consisted at that time of one division, comprising 15 battalions spread thinly in district cantonments and among the border with India. Nine of these battalions were from West Pakistan. The other six were sections of the East Bengal Regiment, manned exclusively by Bengalis with a sprinkling of Punjabi officers. So that ranged against about 10,000 West Pakistani servicemen were six battalions of the East Bengal Regiment; 3,000 men of the East Bengal Regimental Centre; 14,000 fully-trained and armed men of the East Pakistan Rifles; 40,000 police officers and men; and about 100,000 Ansars and Mujahids, the paramilitary forces maintained by the Pakistan Army for security duties in border areas.

This 176,000-strong force was equipped with mortars, recoiless rifles, heavy and light machine guns and road transport. Much of this was their own equipment. But large quantities of rifles, ammunition and plastic Explosives with Indian and foreign markings have since been captured, suggesting the rebels had been supplied with arms from across the Indian border. Documents seized by the Pakistan Army from the office of the deputy commissioner of the border district of Rangamati, near Chittagong, show that this official was in close touch with the Indian brigade commander across the border at Aijel.

The Bengali forces were organized and ready for action on March 26, in what was intended to be a sledgehammer bid for independence. Evidence suggests that the time was fixed for 3 am, but the Pakistan Army’s Eastern Command headquarters anticipated the mutiny by several hours. In pre¬emptive strikes around midnight of March 25-26, army units fanned out in Dacca. The headquarters of the East Pakistan Rifles, the East Bengal Regiment Centre and the police barracks were attacked and subdued, their personnel killed or taken prisoner. Their buildings still bear heavy scars of that sharp encounter. This action kept Dacca open for the subsequent military airlift from West Pakistan.
 
Meanwhile in Chittagong, West Pakistani officers, anticipating trouble, had shifted Bengali forces personnel to shore duties and away from ships and guns. The Punjabi officers then joined other local military units to seize Chittagong Port, the airport and approaches to the city. Men of the East Pakistan Rifles and East Bengal Regiment congregated in Chittagong city itself and battle raged for 10 days. But if action by the army and navy kept open West Pakistani links to Dacca and Chittagong, it did nothing to prevent the slaughter of non-Bengalis that erupted throughout East Pakistan.

Eyewitnesses in more than 80 interviews tell horrifying stories of rape, torture, eye-gouging, public flogging of men and women, women’s breast being torn out and amputations before victims were shot or bayoneted to death. Punjabi Army personnel and civil servants and their families seem to have been singled out for special brutality. In Chittagong, the colonel commanding the military academy was killed while his wife, eight months pregnant, was raped and bayoneted in the abdomen. In another part of Chittagong an East Pakistan Rifles officer was flayed alive. His two sons were beheaded and his wife was bayoneted in the abdomen and left to die with her son’s head placed on her naked body. The bodies of many young girls have been found with Bangladesh flag sticks protruding from their womb.

The worst-affected towns were Chittagong and Khulna, where the West Pakistanis were concentrated. The official toll for Chittagong is 9,000, with a similar figure for Khulna. But massacres have been reported in other places. About 3,000 women and children were found slaughtered in Thakurgaon near Dinajpur: 2,000 in Ishurdi near Jessore: 500 at Bhairab Bazar, north-east of Dacca; and 253 in a jute mill shed in the Kalurghatta area. At Brahmanbaria, across the border from the Indian state of Tripura, I found the bodies of 82 children who had been lined up and shot. About 200 other non-Bengali bodies were scattered around the jail where they had been housed after Bengali convicts had been freed. They had been shot dead by the rebels before the rebels fled in front of the West Pakistani advance.

Meanwhile,"the Pakistan Government, fearful of reprisals against Bengalis in West Pakistan, has blacked out all news of these terrible events. Ships carrying survivors to Karachi have been discharged at night with maximum security cover. And the army, shocked by the mutiny, has gone into its shell, refusing publicly to admit the rebellion while still relentlessly pursuing the rebels in East Pakistan.