Everything is fair in war
Over four decades after the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war, a “secret” has been declassified. It is related to the Tangail airdrop, an airborne operation launched by the 2nd battalion of the Indian Army’s Parachute Regiment on the night of 11 December 1971. A smart psychological warfare game was played not by any Army unit, but the Ministry of Defence’s then Army Public Relations officer sitting in South Block. This was disclosed during the “Vijay Diwas” celebrations by the Army’s Eastern Command in Kolkata a few days ago. It is reported that the Tangail airdrop and the subsequent capture of the Poongli Bridge had given the advancing Indian Army the manoeuvrability to side-step the strongly held Tongi-Dhaka Road to take the undefended ManikganjDhaka Road right up to the Mirpur Bridge at the gates of Dhaka.
At that time, Major General Inder Singh Gill was the Colonel of the Para Regiment. He met Ramamohan Rao, the MoD PRO in South Block before the airdrop, and asked him to ensure good publicity for the airdrop to demoralise the East Pakistani military establishment.
The Indian Army had no prior access to Tangail. So, the photographs of the airdrop could not have been arranged. The PRO Ramamohan Rao said he would ensure wide publicity. It occurred to Rao that he had been to Agra a year earlier to cover an exercise by the 50th Independent Para Brigade. He searched for these pictures and found one and had it released with the caption: “Troops of the Indian Para Brigade being airdropped over East Pakistan on December 11, 1971.” The 2nd Para Battalion, which was actually airdropped, could not have consisted more