‘Peter’ in Tangail: The secret mission behind India’s decisive airdrop of 1971

On 11 December 1971, as India's lightning campaign in the East neared its climax, a parachute battalion dropped into the paddy fields near Tangail, just 56 kms from the final objective - Dhaka.

- JAYANTA ROY CHOWDHURY

The landing, executed as the day's light faded, cut the last viable retreat for Pakistani forces falling back on Dhaka, accelerating the collapse of Pakistan's army in the East, commanded by Gen A AK Niaz, and hastening the final fall of Dhaka, five days later.

Half a century on, the Tangail airdrop is remembered as one of the most audacious airborne operations in South Asian military history.

Less known is the man who prepared the ground for it, Captain Prashanta Kumar Ghosh, a young paratrooper and signals officer, working under the unlikely codename "Peter'.

Disguised in a ‘lungi' and a torn shirt, carrying a Sten gun and a crystal-tuned radio, Ghosh slipped into East Pakistan weeks before the war formally began.

His task was to find safe landing zones, link up with the Mukti Bahini, sabotage communications, and shepherd the airborne battalion when the moment came.

The operation's origins lay in early assessments by thr Indian Army's Eastern Command that Poongli Bridge was a critical choke point on the Jamalpur-Tangail-Dhaka axis.