December 16

On December 16, 1971, the then East Pakistan separated from Pakistan and became Bangladesh - a bitter reality that could have been averted had the leaderships in the two wings acted less selfishly and more prudently. It was the shared interest in protection of cultural, economic and political rights that had brought the Muslim people of British India on a common platform that culminated in the emergence of Pakistan. And when differences deepened, our leaderships failed, precipitating a military action. Accepted, India was set about causing this separation from day one, but it succeeded only when our then leadership lent it a kind of casus belli. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had clearly won, but Z. A. Bhutto "sought a share in power". The then Army Chief, General Yahya, tried at striking a workable solution and invited Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to Islamabad, but the latter declined the general's invitation. Yahya Khan then convened the Assembly for March 3 in Dhaka (the then Dacca), hoping the political leaders would settle the issues among themselves. Bhutto announced boycott of the Assembly session unless the constitutional issues and power sharing were first resolved. Gen Yahya postponed the Assembly meeting and again went to Dhaka in mid-March. That postponed assembly session is said to have triggered a series of events that ultimately led to the break-up of Pakistan. "Whether the purpose was to hold talks with Mujibur Rahman or prepare for martial law remained unclear," says former foreign minister Ambassador Abdul Sattar. On March 23, the Awami League proposed Pakistan should be a confederation. India in the meantime had trained and armed nearly 1,000,000 Mukti Bahini rebels - a confession made by no less a person than the incumbent prime minister of India, Narendra Modi. What happened thereafter is a painful chapter of our history. Perhaps, the whole truth about separation of East Pakistan from Pakistan is yet to be told - because even 30 years on, the Justice Hamoodur Rahman Commission report is yet to be released in full.

More than four decades later, on December 16 in 2014, a coward enemy - affiliated with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) - conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. The terrorists - two Afghans, three Arabs and a Chechen - stormed the school and fired indiscriminately on students and the staff, including teachers, of the school extinguishing the lives of as many as 149 people. This was labelled as the fourth deadliest school massacre in the history of the world. This dastardly attack proved to be the last straw on our patience and forbearance and resulted in uniting the entire nation as one.

December 16 shall forever be etched in our history as a fateful day that we as a nation shall always remember and ensure never to allow repetition of tragedies that we suffered on two occasions on this very day 43 years apart.