The familiar faces were a contingent of East Pakistan Rifles, the Bengali home guard that technically was under Army command but believed sympathetic to the Awami League. The new troops wore uniforms with neither unit, nor other identifying badges-only rank, insignia and battle ribbons. They were tall, like Punjabis, not short, like Bengalis.
Unfamiliar Faces
In front of the hotel a captain said: “My orders for tonight are that if anyone tries to leave the hotel after 11 P.M. we are to shoot them. Please-go inside, I don't want to do anything to you."
Inside the lobby, a sign had been posted saying “Please don't go outside. After a few attempts to talk the captain out of it, no one went outside.
Then The Firing Began
Within minutes, sporadic automatic weapons fire could be heard all over town. By 1 A. M. heavy machine guns and artillery had opened up, and the first fires were visible. The first night of shooting and burning had begun.
The events could be described only as a cheerfully co-coordinated, premeditated attack on a defenseless population in an attempt to crush a movement whose main tactic had been non-violent non-co-operation.
The attack was launched with no broadcast or published warning, although officers claimed the next day they had used loud-speakers to warn civilian crowds to clear the streets.
The first radio broadcast announcing a curfew was made in mid-morning, eight hours after foreign newsmen watched soldiers turn a jeep-mounted machine gun without warning on 15 empty-handed youths who walked toward them slowly, shouting defiantly.
Ten Hours Later
It was 10 hours after that curfew announcement that President Yahya read his radio speech giving the legal technicality over which the talks broke down and denouncing the man with whom he had been negotiating the previous day for the “treason" of trying to separate East Pakistan from the West.
President Yahya's outline of Sheikh Mujib's bargaining position makes a plausible argument that the Awami League leader had pushed at the end for a degree of autonomy that would virtually have amounted to independence.
Given the pressures put on Sheikh Mujib by student nationalists and other more radical elements, it is possible that he had demanded as much as President Yahya said, though the president carefully avoided listing this as the obstacle that finally stopped the talks.
