By Anisur Rahman
 
   DHAKA, Jan  8, 2023 (BSS) – Uncertainty over Bangabandhu’s state and fate in clandestine Pakistani captivity had largely exposed newborn Bangladesh to wilderness, even after December 16, 1971 Victory, while a senior former Indian diplomat of late narrated an episode of off-track diplomacy to secure his release.
   
   “Indira Gandhi’s paramount concern at that moment of time was figuring out how to get Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman back to his country alive and well,” wrote ex-diplomat Sashanka S Banerjee in a recently published article.
 
   He said Gandhi was “prepared to pay any price to save his life” not to let Bangladesh become an “orphaned state” as a Pakistani military court handed him down death penalty on treason charges under General Yahya Khan’s regime.
 
   Banerjee wrote India had wholeheartedly supported Bangladesh liberation struggle and for New Delhi “his execution would be an unmitigated disaster, a dream shattered”.
 
   “So it was in India’s interests to leave no stone unturned to save Mujib’s life, for his sake, for the sake of his family, for the sake of Bangladesh and for its (India’s) own sake,” he said.
 
   Banerjee personally knew Bangabandhu since early 1960s as he was then posted in “Dacca” and in 1971-1972, he was serving as an Indian emissary in London when he was entrusted with an extremely important clandestine assignment.
 
    The task was part of a mission to help secure the Bangladesh founder’s release and repatriation home from Pakistan, which, following its debacle in Dhaka, too was witnessing a massive transition while Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was set to takeover power from Yahia Khan.
 
   “Covert diplomacy or intelligence operation”
 
   Bhutto was in New York to join an emergency UN Security Council session over the Pakistan crisis while Yahya called him back after their December 16 debacle and his Washington-Rawalpindi flight was scheduled for a refueling stopover in London.
 
   According to Banerjee, securing “insider information” about Bhutto’s journey home, Gandhi called an emergency meeting of her war cabinet and “with the utmost urgency”, sought to find a contact who could meet Bhutto at Heathrow Airport in London.
       
   Her objective was to “get the only piece of intelligence India was looking for – what did Bhutto think about Mujibur Rahman being sentenced to death by a Pakistan military court?”
 
   East Pakistan government’s last chief secretary or top civil servant Muzaffar Hussain was in a prisoner of war (POW) camp along with defeated armed forces personnel in India.
 
   His wife Laila Hussain, a friend of Bhutto, was on a visit to London and visibly stuck there because of the crisis in Pakistan while the Indian premier was fully aware of her long close acquaintance with the Pakistani leader.
 
   Several Pakistani documents, meanwhile, suggested Bhutto had made a stopover in London on his way to the United States, when he met Laila and told her she might have to wait for a few years to see her husband, a would be POW.
 
   At the war cabinet meeting Gandhi ordered POW Hussain to be immediately transferred as a VIP guest at the official residence of one of her top aides, DP Dhar, and allowed him to communicate with his wife in London.
 
   “It was felt at the PMO that she (Laila) was well placed to play a key role in a one-off diplomatic ‘summit’ (with Bhutto) at the VIP lounge, the Alcock and Brown Suite, at Heathrow airport (in London),” Banerjee said.
 
   Just two days before Bhutto was to arrive in London, Dhar instructed Banerjee by phone to inform Laila that Bhutto was appointed as Pakistan’s new chief martial law administrator (CMLA) and he was on his way to Islamabad.
 
   Banerjee said as “VIP courier” soon he established a “useful rapport” with Laila taking the advantage of his previous acquaintance with her while she knew it “too well” that the Indian diplomat was aware of her past relationship with Bhutto.
 
    Banerjee’s task was to persuade Laila to ask Bhutto “for old time’s sake” in getting her husband released from Delhi, meeting him at Heathrow, while Gandhi’s actual objective was to know Bhutto’s mind about Bangabandhu.
 
   “India wanted to know only one thing: what Bhutto was thinking about Rahman, whether to release him to return home, or carry out the military court’s verdict of death,” Banerjee wrote.
 
  In line with the main objective, Banerjee also urged Laila to simultaneously seek Bangladesh leader’s release during her meeting with Bhutto.
 
 
   The Indian diplomat said he succeeded in setting up the meeting and the “two long-lost friends” while the Laila-Bhutto interaction was “as convivial as could be” ahead of the Pakistan leader’s return to Islamabad on December 18.
 
   “Without a doubt, the back-channel encounter turned out to be a meeting of great historic significance. It was well and truly a thriller, a grand finale to this narrative,” Banerjee wrote.
 
    Laila later told him that Bhutto was quick on the uptake and while he responded to her “emotional appeal” for help for her husband’s release “he also cottoned onto the fact that the lady was in fact doing the Indian government’s bidding”.
 
   According to Laila, when she raised the Bangabandhu issue “with a twinkle in his eye” Bhutto pulled her aside and whispered to her “a very sensitive, top secret message for the Indian prime minister”.
 
   “Sourced from Laila, I quote: “Laila, I know what you want. I can imagine you are (carrying a request) from Mrs. Indira Gandhi,” Banerjee wrote.
 
   Bhutto then told her “Do please pass a message to her (Gandhi), that after I take charge of office back home, I will shortly thereafter release Mujibur Rahman, allowing him to return home”.
 
    “What I want in return, I will let Mrs. Indira Gandhi know through another channel. You may now go,” Banerjee wrote quoting what Bhutto told Laila.
 
   The Indian diplomat said getting the briefing, “I lost no time in shooting out a confidential message to the PMO in Delhi reporting Laila Hussain’s input”.
 
   According to Banerjee the “positive message” that came from an unofficial back channel made Gandhi “cautiously optimistic” but she remained suspicious thinking “was Bhutto trying to mislead India? Was he creating a false dawn with a mischievous motive?”

 
   But, he wrote, within hours Delhi received a message from Islamabad that confirmed the authenticity of Laila’s account and “at this point, Gandhi took matters in her own hands, elevating the discourse from the bureaucratic to the political level”.
 
   According to the diplomat, engaging her own separate channel Gandhi came to know Bangabandhu might first land in London and then fly to Dhaka, “maybe via Delhi”.
 
   “She confided to one of the members of her kitchen cabinet that she now had confirmed information about what Bhutto wanted from her in return for Rahman’s impending release,” Banerjee wrote.
 
   Bhutto released Bangabandhu from Mianwali Prison on 7 January 1972. He reached Dhaka on January 10, 1972 visiting New Delhi on his way.
 
   Banerjee was a passenger of the British Royal Air Force comet plane that flew Bangabandhu from London to Delhi, en-route Dhaka.