Pakistani Instrument of Surrender

The Pakistani Instrument of Surrender (পাকিস্তানের আত্মসমর্পনের দলিল, Pākistānēr ātmasamarpanēr dalil) was a written agreement that enabled the surrender of Pakistan Armed Forces in the Bangladesh Liberation War. The surrender took place on 16 December 1971 at the Ramna Race Course in Dhaka.

Lieutenant-General A A K Niazi, Martial Law Administrator of West Pakistan, surrendered to Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, Joint Commander of the Bangladesh-India Allied Forces. Air Commodore A. K. Khandker acted as witness on behalf of the Bangladesh Armed Forces. Thousands of people celebrated the ceremony in central Dhaka, marking the liberation of Bangladesh and the victory of the independence war that began on 25 March 1971.

Subsequently, around 93,000 Pakistani troops and officials were taken as prisoners-of-war by the Indian Army, the largest number of POWs since World War II. They were later repatriated in 1973 under the terms of the Delhi Agreement.

Surrender ceremony
Also present were Vice-Admiral Mohammad Shariff, Commander of the Pakistani Naval Eastern Command and Air Vice-Marshal Patrick D. Callaghan of the Pakistan Air Force's Eastern Air Force Command, who signed the agreement. On behalf of Bangladesh, Group Captain A. K. Khandker acted as witness to the surrender. Lt. Gen. Sagat Singh, Commander of the Indian IV Corps, Air Marshal Hari Chand Dewan, Commander of Indian Eastern Air Command, Maj. Gen. Jacob Rafael Jacob, Chief of Staff of the Indian Eastern Command, acted as witnesses on behalf of India. The signing of the document marked the end of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and the creation of Bangla Desh (later reduced to a single word). Lt. Gen. Aurora accepted the surrender without a word, while the crowd on the race course erupted in celebrations.

Text of the Instrument
The text of the surrender is now a public property of Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani governments and the text of the document can be seen on display in the National Museum in New Delhi. The text of the Instrument of Surrender document was as follows:

In popular culture

 * In Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, the encounter between the two generals is shown in the chapter "Sam and the Tiger".