India had then occupied a large area of PakistanThis included areas of POK, Punjab and SindhThe war lasted from 03 December 1971 to 16 December 1971
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in an election rally in Patiala that if I had been the Prime Minister in 1971, I would have captured Kartarpur Sahib after our army’s advance into Pakistan, and would not have given it to Pakistan. However, it is true that the excellent work done by the Indian army in 1972 not only broke Pakistan’s morale but also broke this enemy country and created Bangladesh. Then the Indian army penetrated deep into Pakistan.
At that time, the Indian Army had captured about 15,010 square kilometers (5,795 square miles) of land in Pakistan. More than 90,000 soldiers were taken captive. Prime Minister Modi says that in the advantage we had in that war, we could have taken Kartarpur from Pakistan in exchange for releasing so many Pakistani soldiers.
India had returned the occupied land
However, then Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had come to Shimla to negotiate a settlement after the defeat in the war. After this settlement, India released all the captured Pakistani soldiers. Along with this, India also returned the land to Pakistan, up to which the Indian Army had entered and occupied.
These are the areas which the Indian Army captured after entering Pakistan
– The entire Shakargarh tehsil of Punjab state of Pakistan
Some important areas of Rajasthan
– Three important villages in the Baltistan region of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir
– Turtuk village in Nubra Valley on 13 December 1971
India returned the land in the 1972 Shimla Agreement as a gesture of goodwill.
How India-Pakistan relations became tense
In fact, by the end of 1971, India’s relations with Pakistan had become tense due to the large scale refugee inflow from Bangladesh and the situation there. Till then Bangladesh was called East Pakistan, where Pakistan’s forces were running a cycle of oppression.
In 1972, an agreement was signed between Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Shimla. After this, India returned to Pakistan the lands which had been captured by the Indian forces. (File photo)
Operation Genghis Khan started the war
The war began with Pakistan’s Operation Genghis Khan, which involved air strikes on 08 Indian air stations. These attacks led to India declaring war on Pakistan. Indian forces supported Bengali nationalist forces on the East Pakistan front so that that part could break away from Pakistan and declare itself independent.
The war started on 03 December 71
Simultaneously, conflict between Indian and Pakistani forces broke out on the western fronts. The war began on 03 December and India took a clear lead in the next 13 days. About 93,000 Pakistani soldiers were captured by the Indian Army, including some Bengali soldiers who remained loyal to Pakistan.
India captured a large area of Pakistan
In this war, the Indian Air Force supported the fierce attacks on both the fronts. The Navy also broke the back of Pakistan very well. On one hand, the Pakistani army was defeated in East Pakistan, they were not able to fight, while on the other hand the Indian Army was also penetrating West Pakistan. The army penetrated deep inside and captured an area of about 15,010 km (5,795 sq mi), in which Azad Kashmir, Punjab and Sindh had come to us. The situation had become such that the Pakistani army was not in a condition to fight the war mentally and physically.
Surrender of Pakistan
On 16 December 1971, Pakistan finally called a unilateral ceasefire and surrendered to the Indian Army with its entire four-tier army – thus ending the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
Pakistan suffered a lot
Pakistan suffered the most losses on the ground, with 8,000 killed and 25,000 wounded. India suffered 3,000 killed and 12,000 wounded. After surrendering on 16 December, the war officially ended at 02.30 pm on 17 December. The war confirmed the independence of Bangladesh.
Would India have got Kartarpur then?
President Yahya Khan had to resign and hand over his presidency to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Experts believe that if Indira Gandhi had put pressure on this occasion, she could have got the reoccupied part of POK and Kartarpur by making Pakistan bow down, but then there was international pressure that India had caused a lot of damage to Pakistan by liberating a piece of it. Now it should return the areas snatched from the western side.
Tags: Kartarpur Corridor, Kartarpur Sahib
FIRST PUBLISHED : May 25, 2024, 07:53 IST