On the relatively breezy afternoon of September 12, 1948, at 1345 hrs the Indian Army HQ in Delhi sent a coded message to the Southern Command HQ in Pune. The message, a fateful “go ahead”, was about to change India’s history and geography forever. Within the next 16 hours, the Indian army had crossed into the state of Hyderabad.
After a five-day battle, the Indian tricolour was fluttering over the erstwhile city of Nizams as Maj Gen El Edroos surrendered his Hyderabad State Forces on September 18, eight kilometres outside Hyderabad.
But how did His Exalted Highness the Nizam, once reputed to be the richest man on earth, lose his 2-lakh square kilometre kingdom nearly 15 months after he declared Hyderabad an independent sovereign state?
This is the story of Operation Polo.
Presentation and production: Aniket Singh Chauhan
Video: Zeeshan Akhtar
Published - September 20, 2024 02:15 pm IST
