Islamabad, Feb 02: Former Pakistan Army commander who surrendered to Indian forces during Bangladesh's war for independence from Pakistan in 1971 has died, the state news agency reported on Monday.
Lt Gen Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, a diabetic who had also suffered respiratory problems, died of cardiac arrest late on Sunday at a military hospital in Lahore, the Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported. He was 89. The report said he was one of Pakistan's most decorated soldiers and was wounded in action at least five times.
He had served as a junior officer during World War II, and later held various command positions in Pakistan's Army after the country won independence from Britain in 1947.
But as the chief of Pakistan Army's command in 1971 in what was then called East Pakistan, Niazi and his forces fought against Bangladeshi separatists and Indian forces in a bloody war and later surrendered.
The defeat is still considered by many Pakistanis as a national humiliation. East Pakistan was renamed Bangladesh and became an independent country on December 16, 1971. According to Bangladeshi historians, some three million Bangladeshis died during the nine-month war.
Previously, East Pakistan was separated from the rest of Pakistan by a 1,600-kilometer-wide stretch of Indian territory. Civil war had broken out after Pakistan's military regime refused to hand over power to Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose Awami League swept Pakistan's 1971 general elections. Niazi is survived by his two sons and three daughters, reported a news agency.