The Backroom ‘Kao’ Boys Who Helped In 1971

NEW DELHI: It was a 13-day war in which Pakistan was routed by India in December 1971. And Bangladesh was born. India used its military might, helped by the ‘Mukti Bahini’ (liberation force), to take on the Pakistani army that had unleashed a reign of terror in what was then East Pakistan. But the entire operation was planned and coordinated by R&AW, India’s external intelligence agency, which was formed in 1968 under the leadership of RN Kao and his deputy Sankaran Nair. There was one R&AW operative, ‘Nath Babu’, who was in direct touch with the Awami League and its leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In this episode of ‘Simply Nitin’, StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale describes the role of RN Kao and his boys in the 1971 operation.