An evening seemed to go by peacefully with the birds chirruping turned into a battle zone on December 3, 1971. It is exactly fifty years ago when Pakistan attacked the Indian airbases by launching the airstrikes, and this was the beginning of the Indo-Pakistan War for the third time in the year 1971.
On this same evening, 50 years ago Pakistan attacked Indian airbases and radar stations in the western region mainly in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Haryana, and the airstrike operation was given the code name of Operation Chengiz Khan.
In the first wave of attack, they attacked the Amritsar and Pathankot airbases and damaged the runways and the radar stations which are now used to launch counter-attacks on the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in the western region of Pakistan.
After conducting the first wave at Amritsar and Pathankot, for the second wave they chose the airbases of Avantipur and Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, but in these airbases, they were not able to damage its functioning and operations, and that was enough to operate from those airbases, but apart from that they attacked Faridkot’s radar station in Punjab and damaged it.
In the third wave, Pakistan Air Force targeted airstrikes on Halwara, a place near Ludhiana in Punjab, Agra in Uttar Pradesh, and Sirsa and Ambala in Haryana.
Bombs were dropped on the runway at the airbase in Agra by two B- 57 aircraft from Pakistan Air Force but, that was not enough to damage the runways, and later on the evening of the same day, the runway was used to conduct the airstrike on Pakistan. Pakistan Air Force also attacked Bhuj and Jamnagar in Gujrat and Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, and Uttarlai in Rajasthan.
In Jammu and Kashmir, along with the airstrikes, Pakistan also started taking offensive actions on the region of Line of Contro,l and began with the artillery shelling of the Indian Army of forwarding position.
Indian Air Force retaliated on Pakistan’s airbases and radar stations by launching sir attacks in the places like Sargodha, Chander, Masroor, Mianwali, Murid, Risalwala, and Rafiqui in the western region and Jessore, Tejgaon, Chittagong, and Kurmitola in the easter region.
The air attack left huge damage on the airbase runway of Masroor and Sargodha, and they were not in the condition to operate from those airbases so they were left unoperational for a few days.
On the same day, Pakistan also began with the offensive action, Indian positions in Chhamb, Kargil, and Poonch were attacked by Pakistan’s Army to establish superiority over that areas and was also a threat to Akhnoor, Srinagar-Leh highway, and Jammu in Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan Army started artillery shelling at Punjab and Rajasthan in the forward position and a day later attacked at Rajasthan’s Laungewala sector with was baffled by Indian Air Force and Indian Army, and Pakistan has to bear huge destruction as their tanks as well as their forces were in action were destroyed.
Pakistan attacked eleven air bases in India and began this war, India had its hand over and after thirteen days, an instrument of surrender was signed by the Eastern Command of the Pakistan military, along with that the war resulted in a new nation called Bangladesh.
Approx. 93,000 servicemen from Pakistan were taken in prison by the Indian Army and that included around 81,000 uniform personnel from Pakistan Armed Force and some Bengali soldiers who were loyal to Pakistan, the remaining were the family members of the military personnel or civilians.
Around 3,800 Indian soldiers lost their lives in the battle, around 12,000 were reported to be injured but Pakistan has to bear more as around 9,000 from Pakistan’s army were killed, 93,000 were captured by the Indian Army, 25,000 were injured, and apart from that submarine, minesweeper, gunboats, patrol vessels, and destroyers were also destroyed by the Indian Air Force and Indian Army.
This is one of the moments which will be engraved in history forever, this is proof of India’s strength and also that whatever the situation is the Military is always there to protect the nation, and no one can touch the land that belongs to one nation, they will be defeated and have to bear a huge loss. Now things have changed, this is a new India, it will go into the houses and will take revenge.
The war was covered by many film directors who portrayed the different segments of the war and provided more knowledge to the people. It has been 50 years, and still, India stands the same, united, bold, and the strongest.
edited and proofread by nikita sharma
