Islamabad

Exactly a week after former Pakistan Army Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa referred to the East Pakistan loss as a "political failure", Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in a thinly-veiled rejection of the claim insisted that the Dhaka debacle in 1971 was in fact a "military failure" that had brought host of challenges for the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto-led PPP.

He referred to the fall of Dhaka in 1971, when his grandfather took up the challenge to reunite the "disintegrated country" and "regain the lost glory".

"When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took over the government, the people were broken and had lost all hope," he said.

"But he rebuilt the nation, restored the confidence of the people and finally brought our 90,000 troops back home who had been made prisoners of war due to ‘military failure'," Bilawal Bhutto added.

While addressing a Defence and Martyrs Ceremony at the General Headquarters last week, Gen Bajwa, in an attempt to "correct the record", had made the claim: "I want to correct the record. First of all, the fall of East Pakistan was not a military but a political failure. The number of fighting soldiers was not 92,000, it was rather only 34,000, the rest were from various government departments."

In an over hour-long speech, Bilawal Bhutto recalled the history of his party that he said "sacrificed" two elected Prime Ministers.

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Even their family members were not spared and slain in an att­empt to weaken democracy and stren­gthen the "puppet leadership", he said.