Surrender Ceremony
A full surrender ceremony was held at the Ramna Race Course in Dacca at 5:01pm (6:01pm PST). The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Indian Army's Eastern Army Command and Commander of the Mukti Bahini, Lieutenant-General Jagjit Singh Aurora represented India, and was the first to sign the surrender instrument. It was then signed by Lieutenant-General Amir Khan Niazi, the commander of Eastern High Command in the Pakistan Armed Forces, constituting the formal act of surrender of all Pakistani forces in East Pakistan
Also present were Vice-Admiral Mohammad Shariff, commander of the Pakistani Naval Eastern Command and Air Vice-Marshal Patrick D. Callaghan of the Pakistan Air Force's Eastern Air Force Command, who signed the agreement. On behalf of India, Lieutenant General Jacob Rafael Jacob, Chief of Staff of the Eastern Command, along with the commanders of Indian naval and air forces in the Eastern Theatre, acted as witnesses.
The signing of the document marked the end of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, and led to the formation of Bangladesh. The name of the new country, Bangla Desh (later reduced to a single word), was used in the instrument of surrender, which declared: "The Pakistan Eastern Command agree to surrender all Pakistan armed forces in East Pakistan to Lieutenant-General Jagjit Singh Aurora, General Officer Commanding in Chief of the Indian and BANGLA DESH forces in the Eastern Theatre".
Aurora accepted the surrender without a word, while the crowd on the race course started shouting anti-Niazi and anti-Pakistan slogans and abuses. Niazi along with a sizeable number of Pakistani soldiers were taken prisoner (upwards of 90,000). This was the largest number of POWs since World War II and included some government officials.
Read more about this topic: Instrument Of Surrender (1971)
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