Return To Pakistan
More than 93,000 Pakistani armed forces personnel and civilian intelligence officers, including about 34,000 regular army soldiers, were taken prisoner after the 16 December 1971 surrender. This was the largest number of prisoners of war taken since World War II, and included some senior government officials. Most would remain in captivity for more than three years after the conflict ended, as they were to be tried for crimes such as the rape and murder of Bengalis. Niazi was the last prisoner of war to cross back to Pakistan, after Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto signed the Simla Treaty with his counterpart, Indira Gandhi, the Indian prime minister. Being the last to return supported his reputation as a "soldier's general", but did not shield him from the scorn he faced in Pakistan, where he was blamed for the surrender. Bhutto discharged Niazi after stripping him of his military rank, the pension usually accorded to retired soldiers, and his military decorations.
Read more about this topic: Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi
Famous quotes containing the words return to and/or return:
“A tree may grow a thousand feet tall, but its leaves will return to its roots.”
—Chinese proverb.
“At twelve, the disintegration of afternoon
Began, the return to phantomerei, if not
To phantoms. Till then, it had been the other way:
One imagined the violet trees but the trees stood green,
At twelve, as green as ever they would be.
The sky was blue beyond the vaultiest phrase.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)