 "Veenu Sandhu")
 "General Sam Manekshaw (centre) greets people in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on December 29, 1971 (Photo: Ministry of Defence)")
General Sam Manekshaw (centre) greets people in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on December 29, 1971 (Photo: Ministry of Defence)
Thirteen days. That is all it took for a country to be liberated and the map of South Asia to be altered. India officially entered Bangladesh’s bloody battle for independence on December 3, 1971, and on December 16, Pakistani forces laid down their arms in Dhaka. In terms of its duration, this was one of the shortest full-blown wars in military history. (The shortest one recorded is the Anglo-Zanzibar War of August 27, 1896, which lasted 38 to 40 minutes.) More than 93,000 Pakistani troops surrendered, the most since World War II. Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) had been burning. To quell
Written By
Veenu Sandhu
Veenu Sandhu is Senior Associate Editor at Business Standard. Based in New Delhi, she has been a journalist since 1996, and has worked in some of India’s leading newsrooms across print, digital and television media, including NDTV 24x7, Hindustan Times and The Indian Express. At Business Standard, she writes, commissions, edits and gives direction to special, in-depth articles for the newspaper and the digital platform across beats and sectors. She also hosts video shows for Business Standard. Before this, she edited BS Weekend. She is a 2017-18 batch Chevening South Asia Journalism fellow.
 "Veenu Sandhu")
First Published: Dec 10 2025 | 10:30 AM IST
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