THIS IS MY STORY—69
MY JOURNEY THROUGH THE ERA OF AYUB KHAN TO THE TIMES OF IMRAN KHAN.
GHULAM AKBAR….
Guns Start Blazing
The voice of ZAB seemed to be coming long way from the corridors of history and was so charged with emotions and seemed so genuinely impassioned that my whole inner being rose to salute the man who till then had been for me only a brilliant functionary of the Ayub regime, and the King’s loyal courtier.
Jorhian was captured the next day, and it came to be known that the objective behind this blitz was to capture Akhnoor, a key point that linked India with the valley of Kashmir. Had that objective been achieved, the supply line to the Indian forces based in the IHK would have been cut off, facilitating the liberation of Kashmir from the clutches of India. It was not to be.
The blitz of the AJK forces backed by the Pak Army was stalled for unknown reasons. Then the news came that the command of the operation had been changed suddenly, and Lt. General Yahya Khan had taken over from Tt. General Akhtar Hussain Malik.
I was to learn about the details of this operation in the months to follow, but at that time we knew only that Akhnoor remained uncaptmed even after five days of intense fighting. Then came the 6th of September, 1965. We had gone to bed on the night of the 5th in a state of peace, not knowing that the Chaamb-Jhorian Operation was to trigger a war on a much larger scale. It was in the middle of that night that the Indian forces commanded by General Chaudhry crossed the International borders and launched a major offensive across Wagah with the explicit goal of capturing Lahore in practically no time.
The Indian commander General Chaudhry had plans to have his drinks in the evening of the 6th September under the roofs of Lahore Gymkhana.
He had no idea of the heroic resilience of the far- outnumbered soldiers who were to bring the treacherous advance of his forces to a grinding halt. The Pak Army had been caught unprepared, as a belief had been planted in the minds of those running the GHQ that the Kashmir war could never extend to the International borders.
Obviously Field Marshal Ayub Khan too had been shocked into the realization that his country had got engaged in a full- scale war with an enemy that was several times bigger. He was suddenly charged with a sense of history and of fierce patriotism. His nationwide speech in response to the Indian attack was heart-warming for the whole nation.
“Indians have no idea which nation they have challenged to a battlefield. We are soldiers in the cause of upholding the Supremacy of Allah and His Message. We will defend the borders of our beloved homeland with our blood and boundless faith.”
