Keesing's World News Archives
Keesing's World News Archives http://www.keesings.com/print/search?SQ_DESIGN_NAME=print&kssp... Keesing's Record of World Events (formerly Keesing's Contemporary Archives), Volume 18, January, 1972 India, Pakistan, Pakistan, Page 25053 © 1931-2006 Keesing's Worldwide, LLC - All Rights Reserved. The clashes between the Indian and Pakistani forces on the East Pakistan border which had continued since Nov. 21, 1971, developed into open war on Dec. 3, when the Pakistan Air Force made a surprise attack on military airfields in western India. Indian troops thereupon entered and overran East Pakistan, where the Pakistani forces surrendered unconditionally on Dec. 16. The fighting on the western front ended on the following day, after a cease-fire bad been ordered first by the Indian Government and then by President Yahya Khan. Details of the war are given below. Between 5.40 and 6.10 p.m. on Dec. 3, just after dusk, the Pakistan Air Force carried out a series of raids on the Indian military airfields at Srinagar and Avantipur ( Kashmir), Pathankot, Amritsar, Faridkot, Sadik and Ambala ( Punjab), Agra ( Uttar Pradesh), and Jodhpur and Uttarlal ( Rajasthan). The raids were apparently intended to destroy tire Indian Air Force on the ground but caused little damage, as the Indian aircraft were dispersed in readiness for such an attack under the cover of hardened concrete bunkers. At 8.30 the same evening Pakistani armoured forces and infantry crossed the cease-fire line in Kashmir in the Poonch sector, and 11 border posts in Kashmir and Punjab were heavily shelled. The Pakistani attack, it was believed, bad three main aims: to reduce the pressure on the forces in East Pakistan by creating a diversion in the west, to occupy territory in Kashmir and Rajasthan which could be used as a bargaining counter in negotiating a settlement in East Pakistan, and to secure the intervention of the great Powers or the U.N.
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