BANGLADESH’s new President, the once Left-leaning Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, was all of 23 years old back in March 1971, at home in Thakurgaon in northern East Pakistan, when he heard that Pakistani military officers had unleashed Operation Searchlight all over the country and were massacring unarmed Bangladeshi nationalists, intellectuals and politicians. Two days later, on March 27, Alamgir and friends heard Major Ziaur Rahman, a serving Major in the Pakistan Army, give the rousing call for an independent Bangladesh over radio, on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, from his hideout in Chattogram (then Chittagong) — a message that was picked up by BBC and Radio Australia and relayed across the world.