Terrible Impact of Cold-blooded Massacres

From N.C.’s Writings

[(The following lines were written by N.C. fortyone years ago after his first visit to Dacca (as it was than spelled) following the liberation of East Pakistan and emergence of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. These constituted the first of his three-part ‘Dacca Jottings’ in Mainstream (February 1972). These lines bring out the enormity of the crimes committed by the Pak Army in East Pakistan after its crackdown on March 26, 1971 (which is currently observed as Bangladesh’s National Day), and just before its final surrender on December 16, 1971 in particular.)]

There is a nip in the air and one can breathe it as one moves about in Dacca today after the nightmare of ten months of Pak military rule.

The sense of freedom permeates from the crowded lanes of the old city to the new-rich habitat of Gulshan. Bustling activity everywhere. It is not a mere case of life returning to normal, but freedom asserting its ascendancy, removing the cobwebs and the deadwood of the past.

One can write of the different facets of this many-splendoured liberation—from the boundless enthusiasm of the youth, proud of having borne arms, to the fraternisation between the Indian Army and the common people who until yesterday belonged to Pakistan; from the magnetic personality of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to the prognostications of the intellectuals who are earnestly trying to help in the rebuilding of the nation—its economy, its culture and its political structure. One week in Dacca is almost the experience of a life-time for a perceptive reporter.

The thing that strikes the eye on the very first day in Dacca is not the war damages, but the terrible impact of the cold-blooded massacres that marked the final round of Pak brutalities on the eve of General Niazi’s surrender. One cannot comprehend from outside the magnitude of the traumatic experience through which Dacca and other centres in intellectual and political life in Bangladesh had to go through even on the very last day of Pak rule.

Much has already appeared in the press about the cold-blooded killing of political workers and intellectuals in the very first round of the Pak Army crackdown on March 26, 1971. From all over Bangladesh gruesome reports of atrocities committed on common people, on innocent villagers, have been coming—it is a shattering unfolding of a terrible agony whose scars would long remain in the minds and hearts of the millions in Bangladesh. As the President of the New Republic, Justice Abu Sayeed Chowdhury, told me, these are not just war crimes, for these were not committed in the course of actual military operations. Where in the wide world can one come across young girls kept in bunkers for the pleasures of the soldiers, and kept naked so that they would not be able to run away? Even Hitler kept his Army in better trim—girls in bunkers is Yahya Khan’s version of a modern fascist force.

The signs of crimes against humanity are to be found everywhere—even in the busy city of Dacca. Prof Nurullah of the Engineering College in the Univesity campus took me to his laboratory one evening to see a TV film of about twenty-minutes’ duration.

If you took at his face, you can only recognise a scholar. But behind the academic calm of that face lies the mettle of a great and fearless patriot. And what he showed us is one of the great documents of history.

In the morning of March 26, as the Pak soldiers were shouting that all the shutters must be closed, the young Professor peeped out of the window of his fourth-floor flat and saw in the playing ground of the Jagannath Hall a cluster of Pak soldiers dragging wounded prisoners—students and teachers (one of them was later identified as the respected Dr G.C. Deb)—and then killing them off by shooting straight at them.

Prof Nurullah quietly put the lens of the TV camera out in an unobtrusive way, and on the 20-minute video tape one could see the heinous massacre. Right at the beginning of the same tape, there are scenes of marching students on March 20 and 21, shouting Bangla Desh Swadhin Habey! (Bangla Desh shall be Free!). And then comes the black hand of the killer—revelling in the massacre of the same intellectuals, young and old.

It is difficult to believe that a political confrontation can lead to such cruelty on the part of a ruling clique which, by all signs, had already lost the support of the people. Cruelty in war is not a rare phenomenon, but cruelty in what was claimed to be peace time, perpetrated with such abundance of horror is something for which the Pak authorities would be remembered and cursed for generations on the soil of Bangladesh.

Returning from Prof Nurullah’s laboratory, many a time I woke up that night, and before me floated those tiny figures in the TV film, the spectacle of a despotic order killing off its opponents. It was an unforgettable experience.

The fury of the Pakistani authorities against the students of Dacca and other cities in Bangladesh is to be accounted for in the fact that the call for independence came from these very young militants, and it was their insistence which led Sheikh Mujib himself in early March to give the call for independence.

But not all those who were killed were at the time militant cadres for freedom’s battle. Many totally innocent people were just finished off. In the Iqbal Hall in the campus, skeletons were found. Their identity could not be established, but necklaces and earrings on those grisly skeletons showed that the victims were young girls. At many places in Dacca city itself, dormitories and godowns were turned into slaughter chambers. Bhutto should visit Dacca before he opens his mouth seeking ties between Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The war on Bengali intellectuals was an all-out war by the Pak Army. Its most picturesque testimony I could see in the Bangla Academy, where its soft-spoken Director showed me an ugly memento from Yahya Khan—the casing of a shell fired at this learned institution and charred remains of books.

Why this war on intellectuals in particulars? Because, the Pak authorities could never forget that twenty years ago, in 1952, the students and intellectuals in East Bengal led the first battle against the imposition of Urdu, and in that battle, the Pak authorities had to admit defeat and Bengali had to be given the same status as Urdu as the official language.

That was the beginning of the struggle which culminated in December last in the liberation of Bangladesh and her emergence as an independent nation. No wonder one of the first acts of vandalism by the Pak Army this time was to demolish with bulldozer the Shahid Minar which commemorates the martyrdom of the students who gave their lives in that struggle in 1952. And this year, in the free air of liberated Bangladesh, Dacca will be celebrating in full glory the twentieth anniversary of the martyr’s day on February 21.

As we walked up the steps of the Bangla Academy, I learnt how the building was acquired for the institution. This was originally the Chief Minister’s residence when Pakistan was formed. And in 1952, when the language struggle took place, the Muslim League leader, Nurul Amin, was the Chief Minister; and so with Nurul Amin was associated the shooting down of the students during the February upheaval that year.

Later, when in the elections, the Muslim League was routed, the short-lived United Front Ministry decided to set up the Bangla Academy, and public demand led to the decision that it should be housed in the very residence where Nurul Amin lived when his police shot down the students.

Towards the end of this regime of blood-thirsty tyranny, there came another variant of the slaughter. The killing in this round was largely undertaken by two organisations, specially set up for the purpose under the directive of Rao Farman Ali, the Minitary Adviser of the Pak set-up at the time of the surrender. There are reports that Rao Farman Ali was being secretly advised in all this venture by some Americans, lurking in the dark.

The two organisations set up for the purpose were Al Badr and Al Shams. Unlike the Razakars, who were recruited mostly from among non-Bengalis, the Al Badr and Al Shams were mostly Bengali youth recruited from the madrasas.
The Mullahs were called by the Pak Army authorities—presumably by Rao Farman Ali himself—and told that since East Bengal would have to be ultimately in the hands of Bengali nationals, the time had come for them, the faithful flock, to take over and build a true Islamic state. As part of this theocratic enterprise, it would be necessary to exterminate before-hand all the heretics.

And the heretics included not only the political elements, the progressives in politics, but anybody who stood for a modern outlook. For instance, why should doctors survive when the hakims are there? Those who further the cause of Bengali, those who dabble in science, those who talk of socialism—all these are heretics and have to be finished. All those who destroy the heretics shall reach heaven.

In this mission, the most unspeakable horror was perpetrated, reminding one of the Spanish Inquisition. A heart specialist was tortured, his heart was torn out and put into his mouth. An eye-specialist had his eyes gouged out and the eyes were put into his mouth.

In all this systematic killing, the Al Badr and Al Shams used to get the full protection and active cooperation of the Pak Army. The curfew was imposed at night, and in the midst of the curfew would come the murder gang of the Al Badr to whisk off the victims. And after the sadistic tourtures were inflicted, the dead bodies would be piled up in pits and manholes or thrown into the river. Bangladesh has lost the cream of its intellectuals in every walk of life in this gory massacre—all in the name of religion.

These killings, cold-blooded and pre-planned, told me of what could happen when a ruthless political machine makes use of religious fanaticism, to unleash terror. Those who glibly talk of dictatorship in our country and those who preach religious fanaticism—as the RSS does—should look at the bloody trail of the Al Badr in the streets and suburbs of Dacca, to realise the enormity of what they are asking for.
(Mainstream, February 5, 1972)