Battle of Hilli
1971 battle of the Bangladesh Liberation War

The Battle of Hilli were two major battles fought from 22 to 24 November and again from 10 to 11 December 1971. They are generally regarded as the bloodiest battles of the eastern front of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. The first battle saw, according to veterans of the battle, the fiercest fighting of the war, but the second was much tamer.
The Indian objective was to capture a network of Pakistani fortifications centred around the village of Hilli to allow for an advance on the town of Bogra.
Indian objective
The main objective of the Indian Army in the sector was to capture a network of Pakistani forts centred around Hilli, which would allow the XXXIII Corps to advance toward the important town of Bogra, south-east of Hilli. The 202nd Mountain Brigade, part of 20th Mountain Division, was selected for the task, with its constituent battalions attacking different forts in the network. The 8th Battalion of the Brigade of the Guards was to secure the main objective of Hilli.
Orders of battle
Bangladesh
Sector VII was assign over Rajshahi, Pabna, Bogra and part of Dinajpur District. The headquarters of the sector was at Tarangpur near Kaliaganj under Major Kazi Nuruzzaman at the time of the battle. The sector was composed of regular militia and components from 1st East Bengal Regiment.
The public source identifies “Battle of Hilli” as 1971 battle of the Bangladesh Liberation War. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Battle, Hilli and battle.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4871232. Authority coordinates are 24.850, 89.367. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Hilli” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.