Eastern Command (Pakistan)

Eastern Command
Active	1969 – 1971
Country	Pakistan
Headquarters	Dacca Cantonment, East Pakistan, Pakistan
Commanders
Corps Commander	Lt. Gen. A. A. K. Niazi
Chief of Staff	Brig. Gen. Baqir Siddiqui
Notable commanders	Lt. Gen.Yaqub Khan V. Adm. Mohammad Ahsan

The Eastern Command of the Pakistan Army (initially designated as III Corps) was a corps-sized military field maneuver formation overseen and commanded by its Commander, typically at the holding rank of the Lieutenant-General.

From the partition of India by Great Britain in 1947 and until 1970, Pakistan was a divided country with consists of two wings geographically separated by 1,000 miles (1,600 km). With chain of command and armed forces' combat machinery stationed in the Western wing, the military mission of the Pakistan armed forces in Eastern wing was to defend and hold in reserves until Pakistani military in west staled or ceasefire with larger Indian Army (in case of war).^[1] The Central Command based in Army GHQ in Rawalpindi at that time created the formation with one army commander who was to be assisted by the naval and air commanders. Under the guidance of the Central Command, the war planners in each branch had drawn up a plan to defend Dacca by concentrating all their forces along the Dhaka Bowl (the area surrounded by the rivers Jamuna, Padma and Meghna).^[2]

To curb the insurgent attacks, and political activism led by All-Pakistan Awami League in east, the Central Command authorized to launched clearance operations (Searchlight and Barisal), which led to the creation of Mukti Bahini and their fighting for independence throughout eastern wing, Lieutenant-General A. A. K. Niazi revised the existing plan in accordance with Central Command directive (which emphasized the need to prevent the Mukti Bahini from occupying any area of the province and to fight for every inch of territory).^[3][4] The Central Command expected the Indians to occupy a large area of the province, transfer the Mukti Bahini and Bengali refugees there and recognize the Bangladesh government in exile – turning the insurgency into an international diplomatic issue.^[5] Lt-Gen. Niazi designated ten cities (Jessore, Jhenaidah, Bogra, Rangpur, Jamalpur, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Comilla and Chittagong) on major communication hubs as "fortress towns" and deployed larger formations of ground troops near the Indian border.^[6][7] The final plan called for the armed forces to delay Indian attacks at the border and then gradually fall back to the fortress towns.^[8] From the fortresses, part of the surviving force was to take up positions near Dhaka and hold out until India was forced for a ceasefire in the west; Pakistani forces in the fortress towns would delay the bulk of the Indian forces and prevent them from concentrating on Dhaka.