March 25, 1971 — a night stained with blood, fear, and unspeakable brutality. As President Yahya Khan secretly left Dhaka for Karachi, the Pakistan Army was given the green light to unleash a carefully planned operation — “Operation Searchlight.” Its goal: crush the Bengali demand for democracy and autonomy. Its method: cold-blooded massacre.

That night, tanks rolled through the streets of Dhaka. At 11:30 PM, gunfire erupted, targeting students and professors at Dhaka University. Residential halls were raided, patriotic youths were shot while singing in Bengali. Jagannath Hall became a slaughterhouse. The Central Shaheed Minar, a symbol of Bengali pride, was destroyed.

Elsewhere, temples were bombed, newspapers torched, and Hindus targeted. Civilians were dragged from their homes and executed. Foreign journalists — including Sydney Schanberg and Simon Dring — watched from the Intercontinental Hotel as flames engulfed the city. Bodies littered the streets, some left to rot as warnings.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, witnessing the destruction from his hotel suite, later declared at Karachi airport, “Thank God, Pakistan has been saved.” But in reality, a nation’s conscience had been shattered.

This was not a civil war. It was not a rebellion. It was a genocide — meticulously planned and brutally carried out by the state machinery against its own people. The army had laid its plans as early as February 1971, determined to break the spirit of the Bengali population.

Today, as historical narratives are under threat and monuments are torn down, remembering this dark night becomes more vital than ever. Genocide Day is not just a day of mourning — it is a call to resist forgetting, to uphold truth, and to remind the world of the resilience born out of blood and ashes.

The world must know: what happened in Bangladesh in 1971 was not just a tragedy — it was a calculated war against humanity. And it must never be forgotten.