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India Slept Through a Revolution in Bangladesh: Richa Jha | Kafila
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India Slept Through a Revolution in Bangladesh: Richa Jha
FEBRUARY 23, 2013
Guest post by RICHA JHA
Dhaka, Bangladesh. 18th February 2013 — A woman shouts on a microphone. — A demonstration for the death penalty to be given to war criminals, is continuing at Shahbag crossroads, and has reached its fourteenth day,.
This morning, I changed the ‘sleep’ in the heading of this article to ‘slept’. I woke up to the news that Bangladesh’s nearly twenty days long mass uprising was now getting a structured exit. The most moving and visually spectacular part of the Shahbag movement was coming to an end. India, of course, slept through most of it. The past tense, suddenly, paints our selective insularity in even starker shades.
Ever since that arrogant grin and a victorious ‘V’ flashed by the 64 year old Abdul Kader Mullah outside the war crimes tribunal in Dhaka on February 5, Bangladesh has been in the throes of a revolution. The court awarded the Mullah, better known as the Butcher of Mirpur, a life sentence for his heinous acts during the 1971 Liberation War. Angry crowds spontaneously took to the streets challenging the verdict, demanding death sentence for him and for eleven others being tried for war atrocities.
Not many among us born in or after the 70s will know that independence for Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) from Pakistan came at an enormous price. In the events leading up to the independence, millions of Bengali-speaking East Pakistanis were raped, burnt alive, chopped, butchered, massacred, both systematically and arbitrarily, by the Pakistani army and the Urdu-speaking pro-Pakistan supporters, or Razakars (volunteers) as they were called. The much detested term ‘Rajakar’ has since come to stand for traitors in the Bangali parlance. For years, the people have been riled up at the sight of seeing a bulk of these Rajakars thriving in the political arena; Abdur Mullah is the chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, one of the two largest opposition parties in the country. To most, this life sentence seemed too lenient a punishment for their crimes.
Millions of men, women and children, regardless of the religious faith they follow, continued to spill into the city’s Shahbag Square for nearly three weeks, making it the largest social awakening for the nation since its birth. It was history in the making for Bangladesh. Until a couple of days ago, few in India were even aware of this near tectonic shift within a country we share more than four thousand kilometers of land border with.
I have lived in Bangladesh. My love and admiration for the country is an open secret. A quarter of my friends on Facebook are Bangladeshis. It is through their eyes that I have been seeing the unbridled passion that this movement has infused in their collective conscience, as much as it is their unyielding rage that fuelled this movement. I’ve been listening to their cries, calls, exhortations, jubilations and feeling a sort of visceral connect that is difficult to explain. Ten days ago, when I updated my status as, ‘Of all the places I have been associated with, I would feel proudest to be known as a Dhaka-ite,’ I meant every letter and every unsaid pause in it.
But I am an Indian. And an Indian loves no one but himself. And so, my pro-Bangladesh sentiments have become a bit of a joke all around. Not that it has ever disturbed me. But what has disturbed me is the appalling lack of initial interest by the Indian media, both print and TV, in covering this movement.
I began writing this piece a few days ago. The first draft came out as a passionate plea to my country-people to wake up and look east. I gave the history behind this outrage and the details of the protest. It found no takers. It may have come across as a mad woman’s meaningless rant. So for my second draft, I did a thorough online scan to see if I had missed spotting news items covering the uprising. As I had suspected, there was pittance of a coverage by mainstream media in India (barring The Hindu). This was on Tuesday (Feb 19), and the protest was just entering its third week. I found little that could be called substantive news bytes. So I posed the question to a few editors and news-persons. I was informed that a reporter-photographer team from theIndian Express was due to reach Dhaka on Wednesday morning, while the Times of India had ‘just’ sent their diplomatic editor to Dhaka to ‘step up the coverage while the crisis folds out’. A beginning, was it? It had taken us two full weeks to even acknowledge that the events happening next door merited attention.
I tried to make sense of our silence, our blindness and our casualness. Surely it couldn’t be just the preoccupation with ‘the major news developments in India itself, including capital punishment for Afzal Guru and then the helicopter scam,’ as Monideepa Banerjie of NDTV put it; a view shared by Unni Rajen Shanker, executive editor of the India Express (he mentioned the Delhi rape and the chopper scam). Surely it also couldn’t be just the media’s reluctance to get drawn into a debate over capital punishment all over again, coincide as this movement did with Afzal Guru’s hanging. To me, it seemed more like we don’t care. Or if we do, we don’t care enough. As someone who has keenly followed the Indo-Bangladesh dynamics, I have always sensed the media’s indifference towards most of the news coming from Bangladesh. Hina Rabbani Khar and Bilawal Bhutto’s affair from across the western border, or even Khar’s handbags, get more attention.
Death sentences remain a much contested topic the world over. Human rights watchers are expressing their reservations at the unfairness of the hurriedly done trials at Dhaka’s war crime tribunals. Many are aghast at the supposed bloodthirstiness of the Bangladeshis. A smart move by Prime Minister Sheikh Haseena, say the political pundits. She had promised action against war criminals in her election manifesto. She now has a galavanised people waiting for the severest possible retribution. President Zillur Rahman bowed before the popular sentiment and signed the amended International Crimes Tribunal law on Monday. This will allow the state and others to appeal against the tribunal’s verdict in the apex court. In effect, it could also pave the way for banning the Jamaat-e-Islami party,.
A Jamaat-free Bangladesh will be good news for India, much as it will be a happy twist in the Awami League’s rule. The Jamaat has been instrumental in partially soiling the otherwise secular social fabric of Bangladesh. The growing influence of the Jamaat politics along religious lines during Begum Khaleda Zia’s BNP rule saw a sharp rise in Islamic fundamentalism in the country. And both these parties are vocal about their mistrust for India. With the Awami League coming in, we saw a slight shift in that perception (the AL is seen as having more pro-India sentiments). Even if one were to disregard not wanting to empathise with the mass sentiment as a possible reason, India cannot choose to look the other way at a movement that will decide the fate of the Jamaat-e-Islami.
With those arguments when I first sent off my piece, I received a caustic reply from an editor who said: “…I find the lack of reflection on a crowd’s part demanding death penalty, even for bona fidefascists, very disturbing. I am personally very disappointed with the Bangladeshi left, and their utter lack of political imagination… kind of populist stupidity, which I see in the pious, and I have to say, bloodthirsty, authoritarian, Awami League apologist secularists of Bangladesh…”
I read this mail, shut my eyes and tried to recall the bone-freezing first hand accounts of some of the family members of my friends to have survived the pogrom. I reopened chapters of some of the books I have read on the Liberation War and relived the unspeakable agony of the millions who perished. I tried to refresh my disturbing, gut-wrenching memories of going through the photographs at the Liberation War Museum and wondered: If something like this had happened to my people, would I have remained mute at Mullah’s life sentence?
My answer to myself was loud and clear. So I sat up all night to work out a third draft of this article. I wanted it to be my story of India’s embarrassing refusal to look beyond itself. To make it my story of the millions of stories that I feel Indians should wake up to and want to know. Today we may choose to look the other way, but we cannot erase the common history that the people of Bangladesh and we shared for centuries until August 14, 1947. Every single one of those butchered had once belonged to us, and the rivers still flow in the same directions as they always did.
The majority of this crowd who participated in the movement weren’t even born when the atrocities were perpetrated. But the undeterred spirit of the millions who rallied behind this call for justice en masse was stunning. Day after day, the atmosphere at the gatherings remained charged, inspired, selfless, unified, graceful, festive and peaceful – all at the same time. It has been, for lack of a better word, one of the most beautiful mass uprisings in the world in recent times – even through its darkest moments. On Feb 15, an online activist Rajib Haidar with vocal anti-Islamist views was hacked to death by members of the Jamaat. One instance of a retaliatory violence by the Shahbag protestors, and the entire movement was in danger of coming undone.
That evening, my Facebook wall’s update roll streamed at a frenetic pace. ‘We cannot let this go wrong now,’ cried sane voices urging people to show restraint in the face of such blatant provocation. Update after update I saw the swift dissemination of information through social media urging people to not fall for this trap to incite a bloody backlash. By next day, instead of a gory retaliation that had been feared, the world awoke to by far the most stirring image this movement has thrown up: thousands of protesters marching with the coffin of this national hero, stretching themselves to touch it for an oath to continue the protest peacefully. And millions others uttering it in sync: ‘This is my promise to continue the movement until the capital punishment of the war criminals is reached and Jamaat politics is banned. Till death we shall continue our protest…’
We slept through it; yes we did, with our couldn’t-care-less attitude.
The Shahbag movement has been an unprecedented collective call for justice for a nation’s healing. Through these four decades, the horror tales have hovered; the wounds have remained visible in their shadows; and the desperate need for a meaningful closure to the memories has haunted the nation. Theirs is not just a demand for the lives of twelve war criminals; and indeed, there were thousands more assisting these twelve, any way. But the Butcher of Mirpur has come to stand for the monumental betrayal that the Bangladeshis witnessed in the hands of its own people. In demanding death for him, the people are trying to look for a means to purge their grief and their loss. India, the least we could have done was to have turned our ears towards our neighbours when they needed to be heard the most.
We woke up, but woke up late. But it is still not too late. We may or may not support this mass appeal for the noose, but we could at least listen up and be aware of how a nation is moving towards its second birth.
(Richa Jha is a writer based out of Lagos, Nigeria. She has edited Whispers in the Classroom, Voices on the Field, an anthology of school stories (Wisdom Tree). She is also the author of a picture book for children. She brings together the world of Indian and international picture books on her website Snuggle With Picture Books.)
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Shahbagh: The Forest of Symbols: Naeem Mohaiemen | Kafila
Shahbagh: The Forest of Symbols: Naeem Mohaiemen | Kafila:
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Shahbagh: The Forest of Symbols: Naeem Mohaiemen
FEBRUARY 22, 2013
This is a guest post by NAEEM MOHAIEMEN
Drawing inspired by Lucky, “Agni Kanya of Shahbag” © Shujon Chowdhury
There is a particular way of lensing mass movements, when we are observing from within immediate tactics. In a fast moving situation, with opponents and allies squared off, the first thing to shrink is the space for internal critique. Professor Azfar Hussain uses the term “critical solidarity” for his approach to Shahbagh. A critique that seeks to help the movement, but also a critique some are not ready to hear yet.
For the last sixteen days, Bangladesh has been in an intense new political phase. The ground has shifted and been recast by the scale of the Shahbagh movement. The flash point was the sentencing of the “Butcher of Mirpur” (a war criminal who collaborated with the Pakistan army in 1971). But, by now, the demands have expanded to a call for a ban on the main Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, or even Islamist politics altogether. Older leftist thinkers like Badruddin Umar are daring to ask questions of the hallowed place of “state religion” in the constitution. Younger bloggers are urging all to make it clear that the movement is about war criminals, not religion. But of course, with war criminals conflated with the Jamaat-e-Islami, and that party eager to present themselves as standing for “Islam,” category errors will happen.
© Syed Latif Hossain
Shahbagh is a “leaderless movement” but also has leaders, a mass movement that is developing hierarchies. The energy of Shahbagh derives from pent up frustrations over four decades of rehabilitation of the Bengalis who carried out war crimes during the 1971 war. The great game of party politics has led to a loss of faith in the Awami League that has frequently compromised on this issue. Meanwhile, the other main party, BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) has made partnership with the Jamaat a core electoral strategy. Standing in the shadows is city youth’s antipathy to the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party, with a significant number of top leaders accused of war crimes in 1971.
Some read into this moment a mass phenomenon parallel to Jahanara Imam’s gono adalot(people’s trials), which inspired an earlier generation. But that comparison reveals and obscures, because the metrics have shifted away. Jahanara Imam died of cancer when this generation of activists were still children. Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee was not a significant organization for them either. They neither saw the rise nor the fall of that movement. Their source of energy, organizing, and anger comes from a new place. Looking back, the struggle over war crimes was previously always quite lonely, the energy of large numbers was conspicuously missing. In 1992, when we organized a petition to Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) to cancel alleged war criminal Ghulam Azam’s speaking engagement in Ohio, there were eight Bangladeshi students from my college (Oberlin) and another twenty from Ohio State. Our miniscule size doomed us– ICNA rejected our petition. We had no idea, also, in those days, how to capture media attention.
© Shamrat Hasan
Eleven years later, activist numbers were larger because of the internet. The 2003 online petition against war criminal Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury’s nomination to head the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) had a different scale. A chain letter drew signatories, and replicated. The OIC registered the problem and elected another candidate. Later, when a petition went around about Delwar H. Sayeedi’s speaking tour in London, the UK Home Office responded by denying his visa. Of course, post-2001 global politics were part of these equations, and that obscured the fact that activism was going on without any attention paid to gathering evidence. Actually, a willful disregard of objects in the field of “citations, page numbers, and footnotes” has plagued the evidence collection process since 1972. That is one reason why I insist that the energy of Shahbaghh should be channeled into the desire to do thorough historical research, digging out solid evidence that can result in fair trials that do not require government contortions and interventions. This cannot be a transformative movement if its demands are made only of the government, a government that has otherwise been anti-peoples in its policies in many other areas. It must make demands of itself.
I have been involved in one previous movement at Shahbagh (Murti Bachao/Save Statues andolon of 2008, which emanated from Dhaka University’s Charukala Art Institute). Although that was a popular movement, and there were others before and since, all that is dwarfed by the size of today’s phenomena. The closest analogue is actually the 1990 movement that toppled the Ershad military junta. The large numbers at Shahbagh gives the movement a continual velocity. But, worryingly, it also takes away the space to think, question, and change. While the organization, reach, and tactics of Shahbagh are admirable, it is in the area of demands that they are trapped inside a circular set of symbolisms. Beyond the cries of “fashi chai” (which I oppose because I am opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances), the movement has developed a series of visual, aural, and digital symbol sets that reduce to “annihilate them.” This is where the movement could become trapped in its own semiotics, blending the symbols (death, noose, blood, teeth, vampires) with an unprocessed call to action. Since the noose has become the universal symbol of Shahbagh, the demand is trapped inside “hang him.”
The ethos of the war crimes movement has become its own self-renewing symbol. Youth, internet, self-organized, non-party, men and women– everything is there for analysis, parsing, symbolism. The signifiers signal generational transition, others try to also speak of inclusiveness. Day and night we hear the slogans of “Ami ke, tumi ke?” (Who are you, Who Am I?), and thousands roar back “Bangali Bangali.“ Those of us aware of the chauvinistic side of that concept in post-1971 Chittagong Hill Tracts cannot be at peace with such ethnically singular determinism. Anthropologist Rahnuma Ahmed reminds us, “By providing old answers, they re-draw the lines of ethnic exclusion, possibly forgivable in 1971 because Punjabi chauvinism had been countered by Bengali chauvinism, but now, forty-plus years later, after a recognition that ethnic minorities too had suffered and fought in the war of liberation, after the military occupation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, after no peace being in sight despite a peace accord having been signed more than a decade and a half ago, and the everyday chauvinism suffered by all ethnic minorities, topped by the fifteenth amendment which un-recognises their distinct ethnic identities — it is absolutely unforgiveable.”Can Shahbagh start looking at what is actually required to hold a fair trial, and build toward that? What sort of evidence is needed, and how has the process fallen short? Why are the lawyers so weak, the process so slap-dash, the evidence presented so haphazard? Why are there government loyal functionaries at every level of this process, instead of the best lawyers in the country (in fact, many of the best lawyers are frozen out because they are not “loyal enough” to any party). A transformative movement would not be making demands only of the government within the existing playbook, they would try to change the system. Legal experts had warned as far back as 2008 that the 1973 War Crimes Act needed revisions to be brought to international standards (including myself and Jyoti Rahman in an op-ed). Lawyers submitted detailed analysis of ways to improve the Act, all of which was ignored by the Law Ministry. “Whatever BangaBandhu set up is already perfect” went their logic, even though international war crimes trial processes for Bosnia and Rwanda were major legal innovations, done long after 1973.
Once the war crimes trials were underway, those who wanted the trials to succeed followed it meticulously and documented its problems in hopes of fixing it (of such boring minutiae are processes made, they do not make for slogans but they are essential). Journalist David Bergman reported honestly about the flaws of the trials, but instead of appreciating this, the court served him and his editor Nurul Kabir with a notice of contempt. Online, I saw some Shahbagh bloggers targeting David, demanding to know how “this foreigner” dared report on the trials.
This is when Shahbagh also worries me. The velocity and the size also instills an obliviousness to what came before. War crimes work did not start in 2013; there are many who have done quiet research along the way– and David is one of them. In 1994, when I was interviewing the sons of martyred intellectual Mufazzal Haider Chowdhury, I met this David, interviewing the same people. I was wary of this “interloper,” and was then appropriately humbled when David used those interviews to complete the first major documentary with solid evidence on 1971 war crimes, The War Crimes Files. The film’s premiere led to a UK Home Office investigation into three alleged war criminals who were now British citizens. That is the same film, by the way, that was screened on giant screens at Shahbagh, along with Muktir Gaan (made by another “foreigner” Catherine Masud, with Tareque Masud).
A similar flattening in the Shahbagh discourse happened with Lubna Marium as well. In a blog post, she had narrated the story of her brother Nadeem, who had fought in the war and never recovered from that trauma. The man who read Marx and Sartre could not handle brutality against a Pakistani soldier that he had witnessed, and eventually committed suicide. But, in the crucible of Shahbagh, there is little space for any complexity. To speak even slightly sympathetically about the torture of a Pakistani soldier was to be a “rajakar” (collaborator). As I read harsh comments directed against her online (including a brutal poem by an author I used to admire), I wondered if anyone remembered that the film playing in the background of Shahbagh’s giant screen was Muktir Gaan, and the two women in the singing troupe were Lubna Marium and her sister Naila Sattar? History no longer belongs to those who lived it.
The binary of “with us or against us” is familiar and dangerous. In an environment of rising anger after the tragic murder of a Shahbagh blogger, another victim is the possibility of discourse within the movement. Now, anyone who opposes the death penalty in the context of war crimes is tagged by bloggers as chagu (slang for goat), the same term being used for those presumed to support the Jamaat. Any time a blogger tries to attempt a more complex analysis of events, he is dismissed as doing tyana pyachano (making things unnecessarily complicated). A movement built on slogans, without analysis of complexity, can become trapped in its own symbolism and outflanked by other forces– for example, the Awami League, that would like to appropriate this movement; or the Jamaat, that is fighting and lobbying overseas to sabotage the trials).
I was involved in the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement in New York, where people hoped to transform the capitalist system. But, the movement had problems, including an absence of people of color in positions of responsibility, problematic positions on issues of gender, flat decision-making process that lead to process paralysis, etc. Every time we would want to discuss these problems, people would say, “for the sake of movement unity, now is not the time,” or “don’t post that on facebook, keep the positive moment going.” Those who wanted to discuss deeper problems were pilloried on blogs as “saboteurs.” In the end, Occupy’s bandaged “unity” weakened it fatally.
About the much debated “fashi chai,” I have always been against the death penalty. I want fair trials, free of political interference by Awami League, BNP, or Jamaat, and life imprisonment for those found guilty. My late colleague Jalal Alamgir wrote before his untimely death: “We should recognise honestly that after decades of complexities, secret deals, and depraved politics, justice, though necessary and urgent, will be limited. Such limited justice can be morally justified only by a long-term commitment to truth. To prioritise truth, we must de-prioritise capital punishment.“
Shahbagh could transform its slogans into complex demands, ones that will require a lot of work on the part of those marching at Shahbagh. They could look closely at the constitution and complicate the question of the pheneomena of “state religion.” There are many complex questions that are not as emotive as “fashi chai,” but in the long run they can have much broader, foundational impact. The demands of the movement could transform into a demand for fair trials for officers of the Pakistan army as well (why does that never come up?). The focus could be on gathering and sharing the facts, the truth, and the record with the whole nation as part of the trial process. These discussions of expanded goals and refined tactics should happen now so as to make the movement stronger.
As Shahbagh activist Faruk Wasif has argued, simple binaries could also create a dangerous alienation of those who are religious. “We must keep the Shahbaghh movement outside of thefyasad of belief-vs-atheism. We have to keep it free of political parties. We have to convert the war cry of revenge into the awakening cry of resistance. We have to keep the door open for all people to join us. In front is a long and difficult path. Shaking the country for ten days is possible, but to change the country takes years.”
The energy at Shahbaghh is important, which we acknowledge and respect. It is waiting to be channeled and it is impatient to take its generational place. It should think of how it can save the War Crimes Trials process, not by forcing through a hanging, but by obtaining fair verdicts through a rigorous process that are at the highest international standards. There are many meanings of “spirit of Ekattoor,” and we must choose that of restorative justice.
(Naeem Mohaiemen is a writer, visual artist and Ph.D. student in Anthropology at Columbia University. He was a critic of Sarmila Bose’s revisionist history of 1971, Dead Reckoning.)
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poplu@hotmail.com.
The escalating human tragedy in Kosovo gives me a sense of deja vu. All of a sudden, Kosovo has taken on the center stage of a tragic drama. Slobodan Milosevic turned Kosovo into a tinderbox a decade ago when he scrapped the region's autonomy in response to demands from the xenophobic section of Serbians. And now a veritable fire rages uncontrollably in the region. Much the same had happened in the erstwhile province of East Pakistan when a racist military junta played a dirty trick on the region once too often by a "postponement" of the convening of the newly elected national assembly. It was the last straw for the East Pakistanis who had chaffed at their second class citizenship from the very day that the nation had come into being on 14th August, 1947.
There is an eerie resemblance between what is happening in Kosovo in 1999 and what happened in East Pakistan after March of 1971. There is only a difference in scale of the tragedy. Bengalis had to sacrifice three million lives before it could take its rightful place in the comity of nations. That is one million more than the total population of today's Kosovo! More than ten million refugees had to flee to the safety of neighboring India to escape the brutality of the marauding soldiers from West Pakistan. The 1971 genocide in Bangladesh at the hands of Pakistani army is undoubtedly the worst that the world has witnessed since the days of Hitler.
Chaos can prevail whenever the ruling elite of a country deliberately pits one of its ethnic group against another in its bid to hold on to power. Hatred begets even more hatred. Mobs take over as law and order breaks down under the stress of ethnic conflict. Lot of innocent people pay a heavy price, even their lives, as the ruling elite deliberately instigates ethnic hatred in a bid to perpetuate its hold on power. Three years ago the present leadership of Yugoslavia committed vicious crimes against humanity. The Dayton Peace Accord had brought the oppressor to the peace table, but the Milosevic regime deliberately chose to continue with its genocidal policy. The Yahya Khan regime in 1971 had done much the same thing as it went on an unprecedented crime spree in the hope of getting away with murder.
Apologists for the infamous military junta that ruled Pakistani in 1971 shed crocodile tears quite copiously for the "Biharis" who have been rotting in refugee camps in Bangladesh for over quarter of a century. The indignation of the apologists knows no bound as they explain away the military junta's crimes against humanity as its attempt to curb acts of violence against "Biharis" in the supercharged ambiance of 1971. The very riots that were instigated by the rulers by playing off "Biharis" against the rest of the population become the raison d'etre for the merciless mass killings by the army. Systematic extermination of targeted sections of the population by the Pakistani soldiers is justified as a necessary evil. It is indeed a travesty of the highest order that the apologists of the Pakistan's military junta would even try to explain away the wanton murder of three million Bengali civilians as the justified reaction to random acts of violence by unruly mobs in isolated pockets of the country.
It is fully in keeping with international law that the world is demanding war crime trials for the leading luminaries of a regime that has caused untold suffering among the Kosovars. But apologists of this regime have a way to play down its crimes that will ring familiar to observers of the 1971 tragedy in Bangladesh. The Yahya Khan regime always brought up the "Bihari" issue whenever it was challenged in any forum for its crimes in East Pakistan. It is no different in the Balkans. When Serbs systematically evicted, tortured and murdered the Bosnian Muslims, there were indeed instances of revenge killings. Muslim mobs did attack and kill innocent Serbs in isolated pockets of the region where the Serbs were in a minority. Serbian propaganda machine latches on to these isolated acts of mob violence to justify the ruthless and systematic campaign to cleanse the land of all Muslims. And much like Pakistan's ruling class, the rulers in Belgrade have not only exaggerated but even fabricated stories of brutality perpetrated by the Kosovars on the Serb minority.
Jinnah had campaigned for the founding of Pakistan as the homeland of the Muslims of the subcontinent. After the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, some Urdu-speaking Indians migrated to East Pakistan where they settled down in segregated areas or enclaves. The important "Bihari" enclaves were in places like Syedpur, Shantahar or Mirpur, and Mohammadpur in greater Dacca. Dictator Ayub Khan helped the community with special dispensations like soft loans for houses and preferential recruitment for employment in railways, jute mills etc. The West Pakistan based ruling class used them as proxies to rule East Pakistan. The "Biharis" were encouraged to act as agents of the oligarchy that ruled the land from their safe haven in Karachi and Rawalpindi.
It was at the instigation of the rulers that the "Biharis" refused to assimilate. They thought it beneath their dignity to learn the language of the land they had settled in, preferring instead to continue with the "imperial language," Urdu, which had already become the language in the corridors of power even in West Pakistan. The Urdu-speakers were no more than 1% of the population. But imperial arrogance led to its imposition on the native subjects in every corner of Pakistan.
The situation in Kosovo is very similar. Serb minority in Kosovo is no more than 10% of the population. But the Serbs, as proud members of the ruling ethnic group, never bothered to learn Albanian, the language of the subject people. The "Biharis" in East Pakistan, likewise, disdained the language of the natives. They were brainwashed into becoming the cat's paw for Pakistan's ruling oligarchy. Inevitably, and tragically, they got singed when the ruling junta used them to retrieve chestnuts from the fire. What is worse, the "Biharis" were discarded unceremoniously like the rind of a squeezed lemon once they were no longer useful to the rulers in Islamabad. A quarter million of the hapless "Biharis" have been rotting in refugee camps in Bangladesh for the last 27 years as successive rulers in Pakistan feigned lack of funds to repatriate them to the country of their choice.
At this point it is relevant to present this writer's personal experience in 1971. Residents of Dhaka started fleeing the city soon after the 25th March crackdown by the Pak army. This writer was among them. He fled towards Tangail via Mirpur which was a big Bihari settlement. The day was 30th March, 1971. The writer and his family, packed in two cars, were driving towards Savar. As the first car approached Mirpur bridge, not far from the movie theater, it was accosted by a mob of "Biharis." It was sheer luck that both the cars managed to speed away from the mob. But not before we had witnessed the horrifying sight of arson and carnage. Burnt down cars were lying all around. It is unlikely that Bengalis who were in those cars had survived the mob violence. We must have been among the lucky few who survived our passage through Mirpur on that day.
A few weeks ago, I came across an article by a Pakistani on the Internet. It gave a grotesque account of decomposed bodies of "Biharis" unearthed by Pakistani soldiers in Shantahar. The account was a riposte to a discussion on the 1971 mass murders in Bangladesh. It was an attempt to prove that Bengalis had nobody but themselves to blame for the genocide. Quite a few Pakistanis and even some Bengalis will never tire of this line of blaming the victims for the crimes. To them, the crimes of 1971 were nothing more than the inevitable response to those that challenged their cherished ideology of religious apartheid. The carnage is seen as a clash of history where to be on its right side one must accept the primacy of Urdu and Pakistani brand of Islam under the aegis of West Pakistan's ruling class.
A similar disinformation campaign on behalf of the rulers in Belgrade have swung into action. The Serbs are being portrayed as the eternal martyrs in the cause of making Europe safe from Islam. In this exclusionist view, you must accept the primacy of "European" and Christian values to be the righteous on the right side of history. Systematic ethnic cleansing in Kosovo by Belgrade's ruling elite is being portrayed as a necessary step to counter "certain brutalities" committed by displaced Kosovar-Albanians on the Serbs who constitute a beleaguered minority. It is East Pakistan all over again. I am not in the least surprised, for this is how the oppressor's disinformation campaign has always operated.
In the early days of the liberation war in Bangladesh, there were instances of sporadic violence by unruly Bengali mobs against the "Biharis.". Chittagong was one of the places where the "Biharis" suffered significant casualties. That mob rampage in Chittagong in the immediate aftermath of Pak army's crackdown will for ever be a blot in the history of the nation's struggle for freedom.
There isn't a Bengali patriot who will condone what happened to the "Biharis." To the army junta, however, this tragedy was a heaven-sent bounty. It would provide them with a rationale to justify the mass murders perpetrated by the Pakistani soldiers over the next nine months. It mattered little that the Pak army, at the same time, instigated "Bihari" mobs to wreak terrible vengeance on the Bengalis in the outskirts of Chittagong in places like Pahartali and Shitakunda. In a particularly grisly "incident, " a train full of Bengalis were mercilessly slaughtered. This happened when the Pakistani rulers had already consolidated their grip on most of East Pakistan after the 25th March crackdown.
Apologists for Pakistan's military junta deliberately and calculatingly explain away the systematic genocide by the established government of the land as a justifiable reprisal for mob violence in isolated pockets of the country. And, unfortunately, such apologists are not limited to Pakistan. They can be found even in Bangladesh among ideologues who saw 16th December, 1971 not as a day of victory but as a day of defeat. Some of them had openly sided with the blood thirsty regime to the point of lobbying on its behalf in foreign lands and even in the corridors of the United Nations even as their compatriots were being mercilessly slaughtered and raped in the killing fields of Bangladesh. Others had maintained "strict neutrality" and a discrete silence even in the safety and comfort of well paying jobs in America and other western nations. These Quislings, to this day, will moan the brutalities inflicted on "Biharis" and collaborators even as they pointedly evade any word of condemnation for the military junta that murdered more people than the entire population of Kosovo.
If a person cannot love his neighbor whom he sees every day, he cannot possibly love God whom he has never seen. Yet such a person will never tire of justifying his contempt for his neighbor under the guise of regard for his God. Bangladesh knows of professors who have not a word of condemnation to spare for the crimes of the Pakistani army on the night of 25th March, 1971 in the Dacca University campus. These Quislings could condone the wholesale slaughter of their colleagues because it was perpetrated in the name of making Pakistan safe from the enemies of Islam. To this day they find it difficult to even acknowledge, let alone condemn, the slaughter of the innocents that started on that "Kal Ratri" of March 25, 1971. On that black night the marauding soldiers, implementing a blue print for eliminating "enemies" that had been prepared by their commanders, went to the Dacca University Teachers Quarter to finish off members of the teaching staff in order to save Pakistan!
It was a diabolical plan where people were selectively targeted for elimination to reduce the Bengalis to a subject race. Such selective murders continued till the very end. General Tikka Khan had been brutally frank from the very beginning. He said in no uncertain terms that he wanted the land in East Pakistan but didn't care a damn for its people. The wholesale murder of Bengali intellectuals was part of a systematic attempt to annihilate a nation. It made a complete mockery of the expected norm in a post-Nuremburg world.
Dusan, a Serb pro-democracy activist was featured in a recent article in the New York Times (31st March, 1999). Dusan, like most of his compatriots, is against NATO's bombing mission in Kosovo and Serbia. He complained that the world is demonizing Serbia to justify aggression against a sovereign country fighting internal insurgency. Doesn't his refrain ring a bell? Back in 1971, supporters of Pakistan's military junta had advanced exactly the same argument.To them the struggle for the liberation of Bangladesh was nothing more than a regional insurgency in a sovereign nation. The Bengali freedom fighters were merely a group of insurgents fighting against the established government of the country. The Pakistani army was doing its duty by fighting for the integrity of Pakistan. To this day Pakistan's ruling elite bitterly blames India for tearing Pakistan asunder to cut Pakistan down to size. Belgrade's ruling elite must now blame NATO for cutting Yugoslavia to size. After all, it is so much easier to blame the rest of the world for misdeeds of one's own.
In the early days of the war in the Balkans, the cities of Srebrenica and Mostar came to epitomize the evils of ethnic cleansing. The Serb majority, in an inhuman display of intolerance, emptied the two cities of all Bosnian Muslims. Once again there was a sense of deja vu for those that had followed the 1971 tragedy in East Pakistan. The Pakistani army systematically and ruthlessly eliminated Bengalis from "Bihari" majority enclaves like the one in Syedpur. Such state sponsored ethnic cleansing in East Pakistan was immoral in 1971. And it is just as immoral in Bosnia-Herzegovina today.
There can be no crime worse than a deliberate attempt at ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the established government. Perpetrators of such a heinous crime must be brought to justice at all costs. The International War Crime Tribunal in the Hague should set up precedents to make the world a safer place than it has been till now. The crimes of 1971 were particularly vicious. All Bengalis suffered but the Hindu Bengali suffered disproportionately more than his Muslim compatriots. The Hindus were specially targeted for elimination by the rulers in West Pakistan. It was their "final solution" to make Pakistan safe for Islam.
It is interesting that the Yahya Khan regime took a leaf out of the Nazi regime in Hitler's Germany to identify those that must be eliminated for the "final solution." A religious ritual became the basis of separating out the victims. Any male without a foreskin became destined for the gas chamber in Hitler's Germany. And any male with a foreskin faced the bullet or had his throat slit in Yahya Khan's Pakistan.
The Yahya Khan regime made no secret of its goal to eliminate the Hindus. Not even the most notable among them were spared. Dhiren Dutta, a member of parliament during the early days of Pakistan was picked up from his home and shot dead on the spot in front of horrified relatives and neighbors. Ranada Prasad Saha, a notable philanthropist was killed instantly as soon as the Pak army came to town. The octogenarian owner of the Kundeswari Ausadhaloy in Chittagong was similarly eliminated without much ado. These victims were caught unawares. As prominent citizens it had never occurred to them that the army of their country could be so ruthless.
The International War Crime Tribunal had indicted Zeljiko Raznatovic, the Serbian militia leader known as Arkan. Other Serb leaders have been forewarned that they would be accountable for violence against civilians in Kosovo. But not even a single Pakistani general has been indicted till now for the crimes of 1971. General Rao Farman Ali Khan, for example, had masterminded the murder of Bengali intellectuals. It was he who had prepared the list of the intellectuals who were targeted for elimination. It is truly unfortunate that criminals like Rao Farman Ali got away with murder. T
he ethnically cleansed cities like Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina reminds this writer of Dacca, Bangladesh in 1971. My family and I had fled from Dacca on 30th March. In September of 1971, I went to take a look at my abandoned house in the historical Indira Road in the Farmgate area. The five or six months since my departure had completely changed the ambiance of the area. I felt as if I was part of an episode from "Twilight Zone." There was hardly a shop in the area that was not owned by a Urdu speaker. The shops proudly displayed the store signs in Urdu. There were quite a few Bihari gunmen patrolling the street rechristened as Anarkali Road. I am convinced that if the war had not ended in December, Dacca would have turned into another ethnically cleansed Srebrenica.
After Bangladesh became independent, hundreds of thousands Bengalis were left stranded in the former west wing of Pakistan. The new regime in Pakistan used them as hostages to obstruct justice. Bangladesh government had drawn up specific charges against 195 Pakistani army officers to try them for war crimes. Pakistan was against any war crime trial. It warned that Bengalis in Pakistan would have to pay a heavy price if Bangladesh went ahead with the trials. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto openly declared that he would try Bengali military officers (who were interned in different camps under subhuman conditions) and civil servants stranded in Pakistan for treason if Bangladesh went ahead with the trial of the 195 officers.
A central government employee's plight will give the readers some idea of the desperate situation faced by the Bengalis in Pakistan after 16th December, 1971. Bengalis could quickly sense the heightened animosity. This civil servant was living in Hyderabad, Pakistan. After December of 1971, he and his family was subjected to constant harassment by the neighbors. Then they discovered that someone under the stealth of night had painted a sinister mark on their doorstep. It was an eerie reminder of the fate of Jews in Nazi Germany. That was the turning point in their life. They abandoned every thing, including the recently bought brand new car, and headed towards Afghanistan. They had to trek through tough hilly terrains to reach the safety of Kabul. The smugglers had to be paid a fortune for the safe passage. Today's Kosovo is no different. People are paying all they have to get out of the land before the Serbs finish them off.
In a careful and sweeping warning to the Yugoslav commanders, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook declared recently: "Anyone who carried out atrocities against the civilian population, anyone who gives orders for them to carry it out, or is complicity in those orders being given, and anyone who fails to prevent such orders or to prevent those orders being carried out - anyone in those categories is liable to face indictment before the international war crimes tribunal".
Active members of the Pakistani military junta of 1971 like General A.M. Yahya Khan (posthumously), General Abdul Hamid Khan, Lt. General Gul Hassan Khan, Lt. General Tikka Khan, Lt. General A.O. Mitha, Lt. General A.A.K. Niazi, Major General Rao Farman Ali Khan, Major General Khadim Hussain Raja and Brigadier Z.A. Khan fit the profiles of war criminals. They should be brought to trial. We will not be forgiven by future generations if we fail to have them tried for their heinous crimes.
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Virtual Bangladesh : Commentary
Balkan Tragedy : A Re-enactment of the 1971 Genocide in Bangladesh.
By Jamal Hasan
Jamal Hasan writes from Maryland.His email address ispoplu@hotmail.com.
The escalating human tragedy in Kosovo gives me a sense of deja vu. All of a sudden, Kosovo has taken on the center stage of a tragic drama. Slobodan Milosevic turned Kosovo into a tinderbox a decade ago when he scrapped the region's autonomy in response to demands from the xenophobic section of Serbians. And now a veritable fire rages uncontrollably in the region. Much the same had happened in the erstwhile province of East Pakistan when a racist military junta played a dirty trick on the region once too often by a "postponement" of the convening of the newly elected national assembly. It was the last straw for the East Pakistanis who had chaffed at their second class citizenship from the very day that the nation had come into being on 14th August, 1947.
There is an eerie resemblance between what is happening in Kosovo in 1999 and what happened in East Pakistan after March of 1971. There is only a difference in scale of the tragedy. Bengalis had to sacrifice three million lives before it could take its rightful place in the comity of nations. That is one million more than the total population of today's Kosovo! More than ten million refugees had to flee to the safety of neighboring India to escape the brutality of the marauding soldiers from West Pakistan. The 1971 genocide in Bangladesh at the hands of Pakistani army is undoubtedly the worst that the world has witnessed since the days of Hitler.
Chaos can prevail whenever the ruling elite of a country deliberately pits one of its ethnic group against another in its bid to hold on to power. Hatred begets even more hatred. Mobs take over as law and order breaks down under the stress of ethnic conflict. Lot of innocent people pay a heavy price, even their lives, as the ruling elite deliberately instigates ethnic hatred in a bid to perpetuate its hold on power. Three years ago the present leadership of Yugoslavia committed vicious crimes against humanity. The Dayton Peace Accord had brought the oppressor to the peace table, but the Milosevic regime deliberately chose to continue with its genocidal policy. The Yahya Khan regime in 1971 had done much the same thing as it went on an unprecedented crime spree in the hope of getting away with murder.
Apologists for the infamous military junta that ruled Pakistani in 1971 shed crocodile tears quite copiously for the "Biharis" who have been rotting in refugee camps in Bangladesh for over quarter of a century. The indignation of the apologists knows no bound as they explain away the military junta's crimes against humanity as its attempt to curb acts of violence against "Biharis" in the supercharged ambiance of 1971. The very riots that were instigated by the rulers by playing off "Biharis" against the rest of the population become the raison d'etre for the merciless mass killings by the army. Systematic extermination of targeted sections of the population by the Pakistani soldiers is justified as a necessary evil. It is indeed a travesty of the highest order that the apologists of the Pakistan's military junta would even try to explain away the wanton murder of three million Bengali civilians as the justified reaction to random acts of violence by unruly mobs in isolated pockets of the country.
It is fully in keeping with international law that the world is demanding war crime trials for the leading luminaries of a regime that has caused untold suffering among the Kosovars. But apologists of this regime have a way to play down its crimes that will ring familiar to observers of the 1971 tragedy in Bangladesh. The Yahya Khan regime always brought up the "Bihari" issue whenever it was challenged in any forum for its crimes in East Pakistan. It is no different in the Balkans. When Serbs systematically evicted, tortured and murdered the Bosnian Muslims, there were indeed instances of revenge killings. Muslim mobs did attack and kill innocent Serbs in isolated pockets of the region where the Serbs were in a minority. Serbian propaganda machine latches on to these isolated acts of mob violence to justify the ruthless and systematic campaign to cleanse the land of all Muslims. And much like Pakistan's ruling class, the rulers in Belgrade have not only exaggerated but even fabricated stories of brutality perpetrated by the Kosovars on the Serb minority.
Jinnah had campaigned for the founding of Pakistan as the homeland of the Muslims of the subcontinent. After the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, some Urdu-speaking Indians migrated to East Pakistan where they settled down in segregated areas or enclaves. The important "Bihari" enclaves were in places like Syedpur, Shantahar or Mirpur, and Mohammadpur in greater Dacca. Dictator Ayub Khan helped the community with special dispensations like soft loans for houses and preferential recruitment for employment in railways, jute mills etc. The West Pakistan based ruling class used them as proxies to rule East Pakistan. The "Biharis" were encouraged to act as agents of the oligarchy that ruled the land from their safe haven in Karachi and Rawalpindi.
It was at the instigation of the rulers that the "Biharis" refused to assimilate. They thought it beneath their dignity to learn the language of the land they had settled in, preferring instead to continue with the "imperial language," Urdu, which had already become the language in the corridors of power even in West Pakistan. The Urdu-speakers were no more than 1% of the population. But imperial arrogance led to its imposition on the native subjects in every corner of Pakistan.
The situation in Kosovo is very similar. Serb minority in Kosovo is no more than 10% of the population. But the Serbs, as proud members of the ruling ethnic group, never bothered to learn Albanian, the language of the subject people. The "Biharis" in East Pakistan, likewise, disdained the language of the natives. They were brainwashed into becoming the cat's paw for Pakistan's ruling oligarchy. Inevitably, and tragically, they got singed when the ruling junta used them to retrieve chestnuts from the fire. What is worse, the "Biharis" were discarded unceremoniously like the rind of a squeezed lemon once they were no longer useful to the rulers in Islamabad. A quarter million of the hapless "Biharis" have been rotting in refugee camps in Bangladesh for the last 27 years as successive rulers in Pakistan feigned lack of funds to repatriate them to the country of their choice.
At this point it is relevant to present this writer's personal experience in 1971. Residents of Dhaka started fleeing the city soon after the 25th March crackdown by the Pak army. This writer was among them. He fled towards Tangail via Mirpur which was a big Bihari settlement. The day was 30th March, 1971. The writer and his family, packed in two cars, were driving towards Savar. As the first car approached Mirpur bridge, not far from the movie theater, it was accosted by a mob of "Biharis." It was sheer luck that both the cars managed to speed away from the mob. But not before we had witnessed the horrifying sight of arson and carnage. Burnt down cars were lying all around. It is unlikely that Bengalis who were in those cars had survived the mob violence. We must have been among the lucky few who survived our passage through Mirpur on that day.
A few weeks ago, I came across an article by a Pakistani on the Internet. It gave a grotesque account of decomposed bodies of "Biharis" unearthed by Pakistani soldiers in Shantahar. The account was a riposte to a discussion on the 1971 mass murders in Bangladesh. It was an attempt to prove that Bengalis had nobody but themselves to blame for the genocide. Quite a few Pakistanis and even some Bengalis will never tire of this line of blaming the victims for the crimes. To them, the crimes of 1971 were nothing more than the inevitable response to those that challenged their cherished ideology of religious apartheid. The carnage is seen as a clash of history where to be on its right side one must accept the primacy of Urdu and Pakistani brand of Islam under the aegis of West Pakistan's ruling class.
A similar disinformation campaign on behalf of the rulers in Belgrade have swung into action. The Serbs are being portrayed as the eternal martyrs in the cause of making Europe safe from Islam. In this exclusionist view, you must accept the primacy of "European" and Christian values to be the righteous on the right side of history. Systematic ethnic cleansing in Kosovo by Belgrade's ruling elite is being portrayed as a necessary step to counter "certain brutalities" committed by displaced Kosovar-Albanians on the Serbs who constitute a beleaguered minority. It is East Pakistan all over again. I am not in the least surprised, for this is how the oppressor's disinformation campaign has always operated.
In the early days of the liberation war in Bangladesh, there were instances of sporadic violence by unruly Bengali mobs against the "Biharis.". Chittagong was one of the places where the "Biharis" suffered significant casualties. That mob rampage in Chittagong in the immediate aftermath of Pak army's crackdown will for ever be a blot in the history of the nation's struggle for freedom.
There isn't a Bengali patriot who will condone what happened to the "Biharis." To the army junta, however, this tragedy was a heaven-sent bounty. It would provide them with a rationale to justify the mass murders perpetrated by the Pakistani soldiers over the next nine months. It mattered little that the Pak army, at the same time, instigated "Bihari" mobs to wreak terrible vengeance on the Bengalis in the outskirts of Chittagong in places like Pahartali and Shitakunda. In a particularly grisly "incident, " a train full of Bengalis were mercilessly slaughtered. This happened when the Pakistani rulers had already consolidated their grip on most of East Pakistan after the 25th March crackdown.
Apologists for Pakistan's military junta deliberately and calculatingly explain away the systematic genocide by the established government of the land as a justifiable reprisal for mob violence in isolated pockets of the country. And, unfortunately, such apologists are not limited to Pakistan. They can be found even in Bangladesh among ideologues who saw 16th December, 1971 not as a day of victory but as a day of defeat. Some of them had openly sided with the blood thirsty regime to the point of lobbying on its behalf in foreign lands and even in the corridors of the United Nations even as their compatriots were being mercilessly slaughtered and raped in the killing fields of Bangladesh. Others had maintained "strict neutrality" and a discrete silence even in the safety and comfort of well paying jobs in America and other western nations. These Quislings, to this day, will moan the brutalities inflicted on "Biharis" and collaborators even as they pointedly evade any word of condemnation for the military junta that murdered more people than the entire population of Kosovo.
If a person cannot love his neighbor whom he sees every day, he cannot possibly love God whom he has never seen. Yet such a person will never tire of justifying his contempt for his neighbor under the guise of regard for his God. Bangladesh knows of professors who have not a word of condemnation to spare for the crimes of the Pakistani army on the night of 25th March, 1971 in the Dacca University campus. These Quislings could condone the wholesale slaughter of their colleagues because it was perpetrated in the name of making Pakistan safe from the enemies of Islam. To this day they find it difficult to even acknowledge, let alone condemn, the slaughter of the innocents that started on that "Kal Ratri" of March 25, 1971. On that black night the marauding soldiers, implementing a blue print for eliminating "enemies" that had been prepared by their commanders, went to the Dacca University Teachers Quarter to finish off members of the teaching staff in order to save Pakistan!
It was a diabolical plan where people were selectively targeted for elimination to reduce the Bengalis to a subject race. Such selective murders continued till the very end. General Tikka Khan had been brutally frank from the very beginning. He said in no uncertain terms that he wanted the land in East Pakistan but didn't care a damn for its people. The wholesale murder of Bengali intellectuals was part of a systematic attempt to annihilate a nation. It made a complete mockery of the expected norm in a post-Nuremburg world.
Dusan, a Serb pro-democracy activist was featured in a recent article in the New York Times (31st March, 1999). Dusan, like most of his compatriots, is against NATO's bombing mission in Kosovo and Serbia. He complained that the world is demonizing Serbia to justify aggression against a sovereign country fighting internal insurgency. Doesn't his refrain ring a bell? Back in 1971, supporters of Pakistan's military junta had advanced exactly the same argument.To them the struggle for the liberation of Bangladesh was nothing more than a regional insurgency in a sovereign nation. The Bengali freedom fighters were merely a group of insurgents fighting against the established government of the country. The Pakistani army was doing its duty by fighting for the integrity of Pakistan. To this day Pakistan's ruling elite bitterly blames India for tearing Pakistan asunder to cut Pakistan down to size. Belgrade's ruling elite must now blame NATO for cutting Yugoslavia to size. After all, it is so much easier to blame the rest of the world for misdeeds of one's own.
In the early days of the war in the Balkans, the cities of Srebrenica and Mostar came to epitomize the evils of ethnic cleansing. The Serb majority, in an inhuman display of intolerance, emptied the two cities of all Bosnian Muslims. Once again there was a sense of deja vu for those that had followed the 1971 tragedy in East Pakistan. The Pakistani army systematically and ruthlessly eliminated Bengalis from "Bihari" majority enclaves like the one in Syedpur. Such state sponsored ethnic cleansing in East Pakistan was immoral in 1971. And it is just as immoral in Bosnia-Herzegovina today.
There can be no crime worse than a deliberate attempt at ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the established government. Perpetrators of such a heinous crime must be brought to justice at all costs. The International War Crime Tribunal in the Hague should set up precedents to make the world a safer place than it has been till now. The crimes of 1971 were particularly vicious. All Bengalis suffered but the Hindu Bengali suffered disproportionately more than his Muslim compatriots. The Hindus were specially targeted for elimination by the rulers in West Pakistan. It was their "final solution" to make Pakistan safe for Islam.
It is interesting that the Yahya Khan regime took a leaf out of the Nazi regime in Hitler's Germany to identify those that must be eliminated for the "final solution." A religious ritual became the basis of separating out the victims. Any male without a foreskin became destined for the gas chamber in Hitler's Germany. And any male with a foreskin faced the bullet or had his throat slit in Yahya Khan's Pakistan.
The Yahya Khan regime made no secret of its goal to eliminate the Hindus. Not even the most notable among them were spared. Dhiren Dutta, a member of parliament during the early days of Pakistan was picked up from his home and shot dead on the spot in front of horrified relatives and neighbors. Ranada Prasad Saha, a notable philanthropist was killed instantly as soon as the Pak army came to town. The octogenarian owner of the Kundeswari Ausadhaloy in Chittagong was similarly eliminated without much ado. These victims were caught unawares. As prominent citizens it had never occurred to them that the army of their country could be so ruthless.
The International War Crime Tribunal had indicted Zeljiko Raznatovic, the Serbian militia leader known as Arkan. Other Serb leaders have been forewarned that they would be accountable for violence against civilians in Kosovo. But not even a single Pakistani general has been indicted till now for the crimes of 1971. General Rao Farman Ali Khan, for example, had masterminded the murder of Bengali intellectuals. It was he who had prepared the list of the intellectuals who were targeted for elimination. It is truly unfortunate that criminals like Rao Farman Ali got away with murder. T
he ethnically cleansed cities like Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina reminds this writer of Dacca, Bangladesh in 1971. My family and I had fled from Dacca on 30th March. In September of 1971, I went to take a look at my abandoned house in the historical Indira Road in the Farmgate area. The five or six months since my departure had completely changed the ambiance of the area. I felt as if I was part of an episode from "Twilight Zone." There was hardly a shop in the area that was not owned by a Urdu speaker. The shops proudly displayed the store signs in Urdu. There were quite a few Bihari gunmen patrolling the street rechristened as Anarkali Road. I am convinced that if the war had not ended in December, Dacca would have turned into another ethnically cleansed Srebrenica.
After Bangladesh became independent, hundreds of thousands Bengalis were left stranded in the former west wing of Pakistan. The new regime in Pakistan used them as hostages to obstruct justice. Bangladesh government had drawn up specific charges against 195 Pakistani army officers to try them for war crimes. Pakistan was against any war crime trial. It warned that Bengalis in Pakistan would have to pay a heavy price if Bangladesh went ahead with the trials. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto openly declared that he would try Bengali military officers (who were interned in different camps under subhuman conditions) and civil servants stranded in Pakistan for treason if Bangladesh went ahead with the trial of the 195 officers.
A central government employee's plight will give the readers some idea of the desperate situation faced by the Bengalis in Pakistan after 16th December, 1971. Bengalis could quickly sense the heightened animosity. This civil servant was living in Hyderabad, Pakistan. After December of 1971, he and his family was subjected to constant harassment by the neighbors. Then they discovered that someone under the stealth of night had painted a sinister mark on their doorstep. It was an eerie reminder of the fate of Jews in Nazi Germany. That was the turning point in their life. They abandoned every thing, including the recently bought brand new car, and headed towards Afghanistan. They had to trek through tough hilly terrains to reach the safety of Kabul. The smugglers had to be paid a fortune for the safe passage. Today's Kosovo is no different. People are paying all they have to get out of the land before the Serbs finish them off.
In a careful and sweeping warning to the Yugoslav commanders, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook declared recently: "Anyone who carried out atrocities against the civilian population, anyone who gives orders for them to carry it out, or is complicity in those orders being given, and anyone who fails to prevent such orders or to prevent those orders being carried out - anyone in those categories is liable to face indictment before the international war crimes tribunal".
Active members of the Pakistani military junta of 1971 like General A.M. Yahya Khan (posthumously), General Abdul Hamid Khan, Lt. General Gul Hassan Khan, Lt. General Tikka Khan, Lt. General A.O. Mitha, Lt. General A.A.K. Niazi, Major General Rao Farman Ali Khan, Major General Khadim Hussain Raja and Brigadier Z.A. Khan fit the profiles of war criminals. They should be brought to trial. We will not be forgiven by future generations if we fail to have them tried for their heinous crimes.
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Last updated on Monday, February 18, 2013.
Last updated on Monday, February 18, 2013.
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THE WAY IT WAS - 1
THE WAY IT WAS - 1:
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| OPINION | |
THE WAY IT WAS | |
 | DJ continues publishing extracts from Brig (Retd) ZA KHAN’s very readable forthcoming book |
| On the 23rd of March at about mid-day I was informed that a C-130 had landed at the Commilla airport with food supplies for the garrison. With a change of uniform and the necessities for an overnight stay at Dacca I was leaving my house when my wife asked me to get her jewelry from the office safe as she would wear it at the party that was to be held in the officers’ club that evening. I had kept my wife’s jewelry in my office safe because we did not have any safe place at my house and there were no lockers in the banks at Commilla, I brought the jewelry and gave it to her. It was very lucky as the events turned out later.Driving to the airport a small naked boy standing by roadside, saw my jeep and very ferociously shouted ‘joy bangla’. My two and half year old younger daughter also used to run around the house shouting ‘joy bangla’, chased by her older sister who tried to prevent her. The Commilla airport had been secured with a platoon from Hamza Company of my battalion when the ‘General Strike’ started. The C-130 had brought rations for the Commilla garrison and as soon as it finished unloading tinned milk, sugar etc it took off. The pilot of the aircraft was Squadron Leader Abdul Munim Khan who was my younger brother Squadron Leader Shuaib Alam’s brother-in-law and was well known to me, we flew to Dacca talking about the situation in East Pakistan. Since it was the 23rd of March, Pakistan Day, buildings were supposed to fly the Pakistan flag, as we flew over Dacca we saw the whole city flying the Bangladesh flag. When I arrived at the 14 Division officers’ mess someone told me that there was only one Pakistan flag flying and that was in Mohammadpur, the Bihari colony in Dacca. I, with some other officers went to a vantage point to see the lone Pakistan flag. Major Bilal had been informed that I would be coming by the C-130 and he was at the airport to receive me. On the way from the airport to the officers’ mess he told me that he had instructions to take me to Colonel S. D. Ahmad of the Martial Law Headquarters. Since it was late in the afternoon we went to the colonel’s room in the officers mess, there the colonel told me that Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, the Awami League leader was to be arrested the next day or the day after and I was to make the necessary plan. He further told me that two cars had been placed at my disposal by the United Bank zonal manager and these were to be used for reconnaissance. That evening Major Bilal, Captain Humayun and I drove around Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s house in Dhanmondi. In front of the house ran a lane which turned off from the road from Mohammadpur, on one side of the lane there was a lake. There was a large crowd near the house and a guard of the East Pakistan Police. As we drove past a group of Hindus came out of the house. No one challenged us because we had entered Dhanmondi and were driving out . The next morning we looked at the routes from the cantonment to Dhanmondi, there were two, the main road from the cantonment to a road junction called ‘Farm Gate’, from there a road went to Dhanmondi. The second went from the MNA Hostel, to the National Assembly building and joined the Mohammadpur - Dhanmondi road. At the Dacca airport all the entrances and exits were on the cantonment side but on the far side there was a gate which allowed exit to the MNA Hostel, and National Assembly road. This gate had been built to allow an Air Observer Unit, commanded by my younger brother Squadron Leader Shuaib Alam, entrance and exit to the airfield.  I knew that I was in trouble. For the rest of the day I did not go to any place where I could be contacted. I had been told that Major General A. O. Mitha was coming by a PIA flight which was scheduled to arrive at five in the evening, when the flight arrived I was waiting on the airfield, met the general and told him about the orders I had received and that in view of the crowd around the house it was not possible to drive up to the house and arrest Sheikh Mujib. The general told me to meet him at nine o’clock at the Eastern Command Headquarters.  At General Hamid’s residence I waited in a waiting room, after about an hour I was called in and Major General Mitha told me to tell General Hamid what I had told him. General Hamid heard me out and then telephoned Major General Rao Farman and told him that he was sending me to him and that he should meet all my requirements. General Hamid then told me that I was to arrest Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and that he was to be taken alive. When I was leaving and had got to the door, General Hamid called my name and when I turned around he again called out remember he is to be taken alive and I will hold you personally responsible if he is killed.  A model of the route and Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s house was made, ammunition was issued and after the evening meal I briefed the company. The company was divided into three groups; one group of twenty five men, commanded by Captain Saeed, was to surround Sheikh Mujib’s house by blocking the lane at the turning from the Mohammadpur - Dhanmondi road, a second block was to be at the first turning to the right, a third at the second turning to the right and one back on the Mohammadpur - Dhanmondi road, cutting off the block of houses including the Japanese diplomat’s house. The second group of twenty five, commanded by Captain Humayun, was to follow the first group to the lane in front of Sheikh Mujib’s house, enter the compound of the house adjacent to the Sheikh’s house, jump over the wall, enter Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s house compound and form a perimeter around the house, taking special care to prevent anybody crossing into the Japanese diplomat’s house. The third group of twelve men was commanded by Major Bilal, these were equipped with electric torches, they were to search the house, the ground floor first then the upper floor. The assembly point was the gate on the airfield perimeter opening towards the MNA Hostel, the route was the airfield, National Assembly building, Mohammadpur, Dhanmondi; my jeep with full headlights was to lead. Captain Saeed, Captain Humayun and Major Bilal were to follow with their groups in trucks without any lights, the idea was that anyone looking into the headlights could not gauge how many vehicles were following. I was told that the operation was to begin at mid-night and was given a password that was applicable throughout East Pakistan. Everyone taking part was briefed thoroughly and understood his part, the company moved and assembled on the airfield near the gate from which they were to exit. Captain Humayun, with two men, was sent to circle and observe the Sheikh’s house in a civilian car and in civil dress. After dark, vehicles loaded with stores that the troops take with them when they move out of their barracks, started moving about in the cantonment and to anyone familiar with the army it would have been obvious that something was happening. Later it was said that Bengali officers had informed Sheikh Mujib that the army was going to act that night. At about nine o’clock I drove to the airfield and when my jeep entered the airport area I was challenged by a soldier who demanded the password. I gave him the password and he told me that it was not the password, an argument followed, I told him that I was the commanding officer of the Commando Battalion, he said that without the password I could not enter the airfield. I then asked him what his unit was and he told me that he belonged to the Anti-aircraft Regiment, I then told him to take me to his commanding officer and we marched right across the airfield to the Anti-aircraft regiment headquarters with him pointing his rifle at me. The regiment commander apologised but was quite amused by the incident. He said that he had not been given the password that had been given to me and since his unit was guarding the airfield, he had issued his own password. At about ten o’clock Captain Humayun came back from reconnoitering the area around Sheikh Mujib’s house and reported that road blocks were being constructed on the Mohammadpur - Dhanmondi road. I ordered all the company’s rocket launchers brought and two rounds per launcher, the men with rocket launchers were told to accompany Captain Saeed’s group. This group was instructed that on encountering the road block it was to form a single line with the rocket launchers in the centre, the rocket launchers would fire first, then all the rifles. I explained that the crowd around the road block had never heard the double crack and burst of rocket launchers and would disperse, the other groups were to observe the sides of the road. I also advanced the beginning of the operation from mid-night to eleven o’clock, on my own initiative, to reduce the time for strengthening the road block.  We went about two hundred yards and there was another road block, this time a number of pipes about two feet in diameter, the length of which completely blocked the road between two high walls. I tied the winch cable around middle of the pipes and had them winched, the block moved as a whole still blocking the road, then I had the winch cable tied around one end of the pipes and made Captain Saeed’s group sit on the other end, when the cable was winched the pipes pivoted and a gap large enough for the vehicles to pass was created, we again mounted our vehicles and continued. We went another two hundred yards and there was another road block, this time of bricks stacked about three feet high and about four feet in depth. We tried ramming the block with the troop carriers but could not clear a passage for vehicles. I then ordered Captain Saeed’s group to manually clear a gap wide enough for the vehicles to pass and ordered the rest of the troops to dismount and proceed on foot. We walked down the Mohammadpur-Dhanmondi road to the street on which Sheikh Mujib’s house was located and turned right on the lane between the house and the lake. Captain Humayun’s group entered the house adjacent to Sheikh Mujib’s house, ran across the compound and jumped over the wall into Sheikh Mujib’s house. Fire was opened, some people in the compound ran out of the gate, one man was killed. The East Pakistan Police guard outside the house got into their 180 pounder tent, lifted the tent by its poles and ran into the lake. Sheikh Mujib’s compound perimeter was secured, it was pitch dark, Mujib’s house and the adjacent houses had no lights. The house search party now entered the house, a guard of Sheikh Mujib was escorted out with a soldier walking by his side. After going a little distance from the house the guard pulled out a ‘dah’, a long bladed knife and attacked his escort, he did not know that he was being covered from behind and was shot but not killed. The ground floor was searched and no one was found there, the search party went upstairs, there was nobody there in the rooms that were open, one room door was bolted from the inside. When I went upstairs someone said that there was some sound coming from the closed room, I told Major Bilal to have the door of the closed room broken down and went downstairs to check if Captain Saeed had arrived and if there was any sign of a crowd. When I came out on the lane in front of the house I found that Captain Saeed had arrived with the vehicles but in turning the long five ton vehicles he got them stuck in the narrow lane in front of the house. On the loudspeaker of the wireless set on my jeep I could hear Brigadier Jehanzeb Arbab, later lieutenant general, urging one of his units to use their ‘romeo romeos’. While I was instructing Captain Saeed on how to sort out the vehicles, there was a shot, then the sound of a grenade exploding followed by a burst from a sub-machine gun, I thought that someone had killed Sheikh Mujib. I ran back to the house and upstairs and there I found a very shaken Sheikh Mujib outside the door of the room that had been closed. I asked Sheikh Mujib to accompany me, he asked me if he could say good bye to his family and I told him to go ahead. He went into the room where the family had enclosed themselves and came out quickly and we walked to where the vehicles were. Captain Saeed had still not managed to turn them around, I sent a radio message to inform the Eastern Command that we had got Sheikh Mujib. Sheikh Mujib then told me that he had forgotten his pipe, I walked back with him and he collected his pipe. By this time Sheikh Mujib was confident that we would not harm him and he told me that we had only to call him and he would have come on his own, I told him that we wanted to show him that he could be arrested. When we got back, Captain Saeed had the vehicles lined up, Sheikh Mujib was put in the middle troop carrying vehicle and we started back to the cantonment.  My instructions were to arrest Sheikh Mujib, I was not told where I was to take him and to whom he was to be handed over. As we drove back I thought over this and decided to take him to the National Assembly building and hold him there while I went to get instructions. I stopped at the National Assembly building, had a jeep seat removed, took Mujib up the stairs of the National Assembly building and made him sit on the landing. While we were doing this, from the direction of ‘Farm Gate’ came the sound of thousands of people running. We thought that these people were running in our direction and prepared to defend ourselves, after a while the sound faded away. Later we learnt that this was the force that the Awami League had collected to storm the cantonment with and it was running away. From the National Assembly building I went to the Martial Law Headquarters where Lieutenant General Tikka Khan had set up his headquarters. I met Brigadier Ghulam Jilani Khan, who had taken over as Chief of Staff of Eastern Command, and told him that I had arrested Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and left him at the National Assembly building. He took me to the entrance of Lieutenant General Tikka Khan’s office and told me to go in and report to the general. General Tikka must have been already told that Sheikh Mujib had been arrested, he was sitting very composed expecting me to formally inform him that Sheikh Mujib had been arrested. Just for fun I told him that I had arrested a man that looked like Mujib and I thought it was Mujib but was not sure. On hearing this General Tikka shot out of his chair like a jack in the box, he called for Brigadier Jilani who had heard me as he was standing just inside the office entrance. He assured the Corps Commander that he would have the matter seen to immediately, Colonel S. D. Ahmad was sent for and told to go immediately to the National Assembly to see whether I had got the genuine Sheikh Mujib or a fake. Waiting for Colonel S. D. Ahmad to return, I stepped outside the building to smoke. While I was standing and smoking, a light machine gun, sited at the headquarters perimeter wire, either accidentally or the gunner saw something, fired a short burst. For a while after the burst was fired it was quiet, then every weapon in the cantonment and in the city opened fire. Not to be outdone the anti-craft regiment on the airfield also fired, green and yellow tracer arcs criss-crossed the whole of Dacca, after a few minutes the firing ceased as suddenly as it had started. After about twenty minutes Colonel S. D. Ahmad returned and confirmed that I had arrested the genuine Sheikh Mujib. When I asked where I was supposed to take him to, there was huddle as no one had given it a thought. Eventually it was decided that he was to be put in the same room where he was kept when he was under arrest for the Agartala Conspiracy case. We took him to the 14 Division officers mess, he was put up in an independent single bedroom annexe and a guard was placed on him. The next day Major General Mitha asked me where Sheikh Mujib was confined, when I told him, he got annoyed and said that there was a complete lack of understanding of the situation and an attempt could be made to rescue him. He later had Sheikh Mujib moved to the third floor of a school building. Everyone who served in East Pakistan in March 1971 was of the opinion that East Pakistan was lost due to the lack of action immediately following the announcement of the postponement of the meeting of the National Assembly. It was believed that Admiral Ahsan had resigned because he had disagreed with the military action and it was said that Lieutenant General Sahibzada Yaqub Khan had planned the military action but when he was called upon to execute the action he refused and resigned. This refusal of Lieutenant General Yaqub, the delay by General Yahya in finding a replacement and Lieutenant General Tikka Khan not taking any action for eighteen days, allowed the Awami League to demonstrate to the public that it had paralysed the army and the Martial Law authorities and allowed it to prepare for resistance against subsequent action by the Pakistan government. On the morning of 26 March, at about eight, I received a telephone call from Major General Mitha to report immediately at the helipad, there the general told me that the previous night 53 Brigade Headquarters and 24 FF had been ordered to move to Chittagong, contact with Chittagong had been lost and there was no contact with 53 Brigade. Major General Mitha said that we would take two MI 8 helicopters, go to Commilla, pick up two platoons from my battalion and go to Chittagong. At Commilla when the helicopters landed on the ground adjacent to the 53 Brigade Headquarters, there was no reaction from the brigade headquarters. The first officer to come to the helicopters was a East Pakistani major who was in charge of the Inter-Services Intelligence. In his vehicle we went to the brigade headquarters where the brigade major, Major Sultan, later lieutenant colonel, was sitting in his office, the general gave a bit of his mind for not checking why the helicopters had come. I telephoned my battalion headquarters and told my adjutant to bring sixty men with weapons and ammunition to the brigade headquarters and that they would be going to Chittagong and that Major Mannan, the Bengali company commander was to be included. I next telephoned my house and spoke to my wife, she told me that everything was fine, she said she had been asked to move to an area where the majority of the West Pakistani officers were living, I told her that was not necessary. While I was telephoning my wife, Lieutenant Colonel Yaqub Malik, commanding officer 53 Field Regiment Artillery came to the brigade headquarters, with Brigadier Iqbal Shafi away, he was the senior officer in Commilla, he had a dazed look on his face. Without any preliminaries he announced that he would use his guns if there was any opposition, he could not clearly explain the situation in Commilla and what he planned to do. Two platoons of Hamza Company with Captain Sajjad Akbar and Major Abdul Mannan arrived and got in the helicopters. One platoon was deployed on the Commilla airfield, this left Lieutenant Haider, the Subedar Major and the few battalion headquarters personnel in Commilla. 53 Brigade and 24 FF had been ordered to make a night move to Chittagong and had lost contact with Commilla and Dacca, our helicopters flew along the road Commilla - Chittagong, there was no sign of the brigade on the main road to Chittagong. On arrival at Chittagong the helicopters circled the Nautonpara cantonment, machine gun fire could be heard and on the hillocks at the edge of the cantonment weapons could be seen firing small arms, as the helicopters came from the hillocks and troops in the barracks away from the hillocks waved at the helicopters. We landed in an open ground between two barracks, the troops dismounted. Lieutenant Colonel A. H. Fatmi, the commanding officer of 20 Baluch, came and reported to Major General Mitha, he said that he had been ordered to take his battalion to the port where the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation ship M.V. Swat had berthed and had brought 105 mm gun ammunition which had to be unloaded by troops because the dock workers were on strike; a company of a Punjab battalion which had just arrived from West Pakistan and was on its way to Sylhet, was already employed on the task, at about three o’clock in the morning 20 Baluch started moving. To go out of the cantonment, the Baluch battalion had to pass through the East Bengal Centre lines and as it approached the hillocks, it came under fire from prepared positions on the hillocks. Lieutenant Colonel Fatmi was in complete control of the situation though he was not in communication with any other army unit or the Navy and did not ask for any help. Colonel Shigri, 1st PMA Course, officiating commandant of the East Bengal Centre, was there, in his night clothes, he had managed to get out of his house and come to the Baluch lines. After ensuring that everything was under control, Major General Mitha told Lieutenant Colonel Fatmi that he would arrange communications with the Navy and we all got in the helicopters and flew to the Naval Base. We circled the Naval Base but there was no reaction, no one came out of any building. The helicopters landed on a parade ground and after a while a vehicle came and took us to the office of Commodore R. A. Mumtaz, the commander of the Pakistan Navy in East Pakistan. Commodore Mumtaz said that a naval contingent had secured the Chittagong airfield, there was no problem at the Naval Base but he was not aware of what was going on in the port. Major General Mitha ordered one of my platoons to relieve the Naval contingent at the airport. The Chittagong Airport had been seized by the rebels, a platoon of East Pakistan Rifles, withdrawn from a border post was hurriedly sent on 25 March to seize it. The platoon was not given clear instructions and was apparently not aware of the prevailing situation in Chittagong. In the hurry of the deployment the West Pakistani JCOs and NCOs were not screened out and a West Pakistani took charge of the machine gun covering the road to the terminal building. On the same day about a platoon strength of Navy personnel were sent under Lieutenant Commander Akhtar, later captain, to secure the airport, the West Pakistani did not allow the machine gun to fire. Lieutenant Commander Akhtar drove up to the terminal building, told the East Pakistan Rifles men that he had come to relieve them, to stack their weapons and rest. When the weapons were stacked they were seized and all the men were locked in the basement of the terminal building. Captain Sajjad with a platoon relieved the Navy personnel and took over the airport. The second platoon under Major Mannan remained at the Naval Base. A wireless set was obtained from the Navy and Major General Mitha and I went back to 20 Baluch, gave them the wireless set and established communications with the Naval Base. In one helicopter, personnel who had to be evacuated from the Nautonpara cantonment, including Mrs Mazumdar, were sent off to Dacca. In the second helicopter Major General Mitha and I flew along the Chittagong - Commilla road looking for Brigadier Shafi and 53 Brigade, instead of following the main road we followed a minor road which made a loop near Feni and found the brigade. We landed and Brigadier Iqbal Shafi told us that after he had gone a few miles from Commilla he found that the wooden bridges on streams burnt and he had difficulty in crossing the numerous streams, which had delayed him the previous night and since the morning 24 FF was in contact with a East Bengal Regiment unit which was resisting his movement to Chittagong and told us that Lieutenant Colonel Shahpur Khan, Commanding Officer 24 FF, had been shot and killed by a sniper. From there we flew back to Dacca arriving just when it was getting dark. Brigadier Mazumdar, 2nd PMA Course, had been transferred from the Punjab Regiment to the East Bengal Regiment to command the East Bengal Regimental Centre, his wife was in the 20 Baluch lines and was evacuated to Dacca with others. Some days before the military action started a non-Bengali lieutenant colonel went to see Brigadier Mazumdar in his office, the brigadier was not in his office, the officer entered the office, saw a signal message lying on the brigadier’s table and read it. It was a message from Lieutenant Colonel Massoudul Hussain Khan, 4th PMA Course, commanding 2 East Bengal Regiment at Jodeybpur north of Dacca, asking Brigadier Mazumdar for orders in the event of military action. The officer pocketed the signal and sent it to the authorities in Dacca. The story went that Major General Khadim Hussain Raja flew to the East Pakistan Regimental Centre for a visit and there involved Brigadier Mazumdar in a discussion about the state of 2 East Bengal Regiment and ordered Brigadier Mazumdar to accompany him to Dacca to inspect the battalion and make a report. Brigadier Mazumdar accompanied him but disappeared in Dacca. When the helicopter carrying Mrs. Mazumdar landed at Dacca, she went straight to where the brigadier was staying, she was being followed and both were taken into custody. Lieutenant Colonel Massoudul Hussain was also taken into custody. Brigadier Mazumdar and his wife were flown to West Pakistan and Colonel Agha Javed Iqbal, Colonel Staff 6 Armoured Division, was informed that Brigadier Mazumdar and his wife were being sent to 6 Armoured Division and they were to be kept in custody in Banni Bungalow, a rest house on the Grand Trunk Road, between Kharian and Sarai Alamgir. Being thorough in everything he did, he had the brigadier and his wife searched, Mrs. Mazumdar was carrying a pistol in her handbag. She had the pistol all the time she had been in custody and while flying to West Pakistan, why she or her husband did not hijack the aircraft bringing them to West Pakistan is anybody’s guess. 26 Cavalry, deployed in the Saeedpur, Bogra area had two troops of tanks in Chittagong because the tank ranges were located at the base of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and it was difficult to move tanks to Chittagong and back so gunners were sent to Chittagong to fire. The two troops were under command of Captain Kayani and were housed in the 20 Baluch lines. Brigadier Mazumdar, in his capacity of Station Commander, ordered tanks to be moved to the East Pakistan regimental Centre but Captain Kayani managed to evade the order. After the East Pakistan Regimental Centre was cleared by 20 Baluch, I went to Brigadier Mazumdar’s house. In one room he had made an ‘operations room’, on one wall there was a quarter inch map of the whole of East Pakistan with the deployment of the East Bengal Battalions, East Pakistan Rifle Wings, police and ad hoc units marked with chinagraph pencils, an obvious command headquarters of all the Bengali troops in East Pakistan and Brigadier Mazumdar was to control them. When I returned in the evening to Dacca and went to the place where I was staying, I found Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Suleiman, commanding officer 2 Commando Battalion there, he and about a company of 2 Commando Battalion had been air lifted from West Pakistan and later another flight of PIA brought another company. While having our evening meal we turned on the radio and heard an Indian radio station, probably All India Radio, Calcutta, announce that Sheikh Mujib had safely crossed over to India. We also heard Major Zia ur Rehman, the second in command of 8 East Bengal Regiment, broadcast declaring the independence of Bangladesh and proclaiming himself the commander-in-chief of the Bangladesh army. The next day, 27 March, I again accompanied Major General Mitha to the Naval Base, Ghazi and Shaheen Companies of 2 Commando Battalion, with Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman and his adjutant Captain Sikandar, flew in C-130s to Chittagong. In the late afternoon Major General A. O. Mitha ordered Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman to take his two companies and link up with 53 Brigade which was still held up on the Commilla - Chittagong road. Since 2 Commando Battalion had come from West Pakistan, they were not familiar with Chittagong and required a guide to lead them. A Bihari officer, Captain Siddiqui whose parents were living on the outskirts of Chittagong and there was no news of them, had come to Chittagong from Azad Kashmir by getting lifts in the aircraft moving troops from West Pakistan. He had managed a lift in the C-130 bringing the commando battalion and he offered to guide 2 Commando Battalion to the outskirts of the city. Vehicles of the Pakistan Navy were borrowed and 2 Commando Battalion was ready to move at about five in the evening. Captain Sajjad came and told me that Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman had given orders to drive through the city in a convoy. I talked to Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman and told him that the situation was not a ‘aid to civil power’ situation and asked him to take precautions. He laughed and told me that all of us who were serving in East Pakistan had lost our nerves and ordered the convoy to move. Major General Mitha also ordered reconnaissance of the East Pakistan Rifles headquarters with a view to clearing it and releasing some West Pakistanis that were known to be held prisoners. After giving these orders and telling me to stay back the general flew back to Dacca. Major Salman Ahmad, Ebrahim Company commander, who with his company had gone to West Pakistan in December after completing two years with 3 Commando Battalion in East Pakistan, had accompanied 2 Commando Battalion because he was the only officer in the battalion who had been in East Pakistan. Major Salman was given charge of the reconnaissance of the East Pakistan Rifles Headquarters because he was familiar with the East Pakistan Rifles Headquarters, Captain Zaidi, later brigadier, from 2 Commando Battalion and Subedar Ramzan of 3 Commando Battalion and some men of Hamza Company made up the party and moved off at about the same time as 2 Commando Battalion. At the Naval Base, at about seven thirty in the evening, I was called to the telephone and told that there was a call for me from Tiger Pass, a Naval establishment in the city. On the line there was a lance naik from Ghazi Company, he told me that 2 Commando Battalion had been ambushed, everyone had been killed and he was the sole survivor. I told him that it was impossible for the whole battalion to be killed, that he had deserted and asked the authorities at Tiger Pass to place him under arrest. At about eleven o’clock Major Mohammad Iqbal, later brigadier, Ghazi company commander came and reported to me that 2 Commando Battalion had been ambushed about half a mile from where the Commilla road started, that Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman, Captain Sikandar and Captain Siddiqui had been killed and he had brought the casualties. The Naval Base had a small Medical Inspection Room and a medical officer who was a lieutenant commander. The wounded were first taken out and laid out on the floor of the MI Room, then the dead. The medical officer, when he came and saw the dead and the wounded lying on the floor, fainted and had to be carried away. Then someone from the Navy said that there were some medical college students in the Naval Base, they were called and they with the nursing orderlies gave whatever aid that could be given. There were twenty three dead, Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman, Captain Sikandar and Captain Siddiqui, Subedar Allah Din and nineteen other ranks, and twenty wounded. Major Iqbal took the remainder of the company back to the ambush site to clear it but there was nobody there. We later learnt that the ambush was laid by a subedar major of the East Pakistan Rifles to ambush 53 Brigade when they entered Chittagong. The place where the ambush of 2 Commando Battalion took place was near the East Pakistan Rifles headquarters. When the firing took place at the ambush site the personnel defending the headquarters took up their firing positions and intercepted the reconnaissance party, wounding Captain Zaidi. Major Salman and Subedar Ramzan carried Captain Zaidi for about four hundred yards, then Subedar Ramzan went and brought a vehicle, Captain Zaidi was put in it and the vehicle started moving towards the Naval Base. A sentry left by the reconnaissance party, signalled the vehicle to stop, the vehicle did not stop and as it went past the sentry he fired two shots in the dark, both bullets hit Subedar Ramzan in the thigh. Later Subedar Ramzan commented on the excellence of the man’s night shooting ability. The next morning a troop-carrying C-130 came, I had all the dead and the wounded loaded on it and sent to Dacca because the hospital was in Chittagong cantonment in Nautonpara where 20 Baluch and the East Bengal Regimental Centre were still fighting and there were no other hospital facilities. When the C-130 landed in Dacca and about fifty casualties were off loaded it had a stunning effect on the personnel on the airfield and in the cantonment. A few days later I received a message that the wounded would be taken care of locally and the dead will be buried locally as sending them to Dacca had an effect on the morale there. With Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman killed I assumed command of 2 Commando Battalion also and ordered both the battalions to always wear the commando insignia and the maroon beret to show the people that the commandos had arrived. I placed a platoon from 2 Commando Battalion, commanded by Captain Pervez, later lieutenant colonel, at the airport, the task of the platoon was to protect the terminal building and aircraft while it was on the ground. The East Pakistan Rifles men were still locked up in the basement and were employed for loading and unloading cargo. On 28 March the situation was grim, 53 Brigade was still on the road between Commilla and Chittagong with 8 East Bengal Regiment, commanded by Major Zia ur Rehman, fighting a rearguard action, 20 Baluch and East Bengal Regimental Centre were still fighting in Nautonpara, 2 Commando Battalion had been ambushed, and the reconnaissance of the East Pakistan Rifles headquarters had failed. Late in the day Major General Khadim Hussain Raja arrived to takeover the control of operations in Chittagong. From Dacca, Major General Mitha ordered me to mount a raid on Radio Pakistan Chittagong whose transmitter was being used by Major Zia ur Rehman as the Bangladesh Radio. When I inquired from Major Salman, Major Mannan and Captain Sajjad if they knew where in Chittagong the transmitters were located everyone said they had seen the masts but did not remember the location. I tried the Navy, they also did not know. I was wondering what to do when I chanced to see a Chittagong telephone directory, I looked it up and the location of the transmitter was given as Kalurghat. On looking up a map it was found that to get to the transmitter site from the Naval Base you had to pass through the city, get on to the Chittagong - Kaptai road and go about six miles. This was not possible because the city was in the hands of Major Zia ur Rehman who was controlling the 8 East Bengal Regiment, the East Bengal Regimental Centre and East Pakistan Rifle rebels. The map showed that the transmitter was located about a mile from the Karnaphuli River bank downstream from the Kaptai Dam and could be approached by going up river. The Navy was asked to provide a suitable craft to lift about fifty men and they agreed to provide a landing craft tank, two or three of these vessels had been captured from the Indians in the 1965 war. A plan was drawn up on surmises, Major Mannan was given the command because he was the senior officer and could speak Bengali. I reminded him that when he was commissioned he had taken an oath and now was the time to fulfil it. The party was to be landed at high tide but landing craft was late in arriving and the raiding party left at about nine at night. By the time the landing party reached the disembarkation area, the tide was running out and the party had to wade through mud for a long distance. The signal operator carrying the thirty pound AN/GRC 9 wireless set dropped it in the mud and could not find it as it sank in the loose mud. After the party crossed the high water mark Major Mannan made inquiries about the location of the transmitter from the residents of houses on the river bank and the party moved in the direction indicated. After going for some distance it ran into a rebel patrol, Major Mannan talked to them and then grabbed the sten gun of the man he was talking to, the man fired and the bullet went through Major Mannan’s palm. When the firing started the raiding party, which had crowded near Major Mannan, went to the ground, one man, who was armed with a rocket launcher, did not have the safety catch on and as he went to ground the rocket launcher fired. The rocket landed in the middle of the raiding force, the Bengali patrol ran away, in the raiding force a number of persons were wounded. The officers conferred and it was decided to find a suitable defensive position which the raiding party would occupy and Major Mannan would return to the cantonment and get help. Major Salman reconnoitered and found that the Chittagong - Kaptai road was a few hundred yards away, the transmitter was about a five or six hundred yards away, and very luckily, just off the metal road he found a concrete building with a long drive from the road. The raiding party moved its wounded to the building and prepared to defend it. Major Mannan walked and ran along the Kaptai - Chittagong road to the Chittagong cantonment and reported the mishap of the raiding party to Lieutenant Colonel Fatmi who reported it to Major General Khadim Raja on the wireless. I was sent for and spoke to Major Mannan who told me what had happened and told me the exact location of the transmitter. I told Major General Khadim Raja that now that we had the location of the transmitter I would ask for an air strike and knock it out. I got in touch with Dacca, explained what had happened and asked for an air strike. About two hours later, two F-86 Sabres arrived, carried out a very impressive rocketing and machine gunning of the Radio Pakistan transmitters and the transmitter went off the air. | |
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