Lt. Col. ATM Haider: The ballad of a decorated soldier

 

December is the Month of Victory for us in Bangladesh. In 1971, I was a college student. Though all through in my life, I have been apolitical, I actively participated in all glorious movements from 1966 to 1971 to achieve our own independent and sovereign homeland.

The year 1969 saw operose turbulent times throughout Bangladesh because of Agartala Conspiracy Case against Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and 34 other Bengali civil and military functionaries by Pakistan’s military dictator President Ayub Khan. Agitation was then very intense against Ayub Khan’s regime which led to the down-fall of President Ayub Khan. Agartala Conspiracy Case was crawfished. Bangabandhu Mujib and all other co-accused of Agartala Conspiracy Case came out from the military confinement like great heroes - submarine sandwich!

But then another military dictator Gen Yahya Khan usurped power of Pakistan as President.

After landslide victory of Awami League (AL) under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in all-Pakistan based national election in 1970, Pakistan’s military dictator Yahya Khan, after plying begriming diddles, turned down to transfer power to Bangabandhu and his party AL. Through-out March, 1971, demonstrations of all classes of people mounted to the highest peak against Pakistan’s military junta. The whole Bengali nation became chromatic and gemstone like at the clarion call of Bangabandhu Mujib to resist Pakistan’s military deceptive dissemble to establish Bangladesh.

All Bengalis then revolted against the mischievous demeanor of Pakistan’s military regime which turned into a full-scale war with Pakistan in 1971. The Bengali army personnel of Pakistan’s army momently joined our Liberation War to attain Bangladesh. To liberate Bangladesh from Pakistan’s military junta, an exile Government of Bangladesh was formed and 11 War Sectors were constituted under the command of Bengali army officials along with their support staffs.

India and former Soviet Union stood beside us with resolute determination. We jointly gave them a crushing defeat on 16 December, 1971 and Bangladesh was born.

Lt. Co. ATM Haider lived only 33 years. He (12 January 1942 – 7 November 1975) was a Bangladesh Army officer and recipient of Bir Uttom, the second highest military award in Bangladesh. He hails from Kishoreganj District Sadar. I am also from the same place of Bangladesh. We are very close relative to each other, but he was senior to me by a little over a decade in age. He was a six-feet tall in height with a strong-boned body figure.

Our house is only five minutes walking distance from Kishoreganj Railway Station. After many years, towards the end of March, 1971, I saw him in civil dress along with Sergeant Abdul Jail, an accused of Agartala Conspiracy Case, on a motor-bike going to Kishoreganj Railway Station to receive Gen Shafiullah, former Army Chief, who was coming to Kishoreganj along with about 300 Bengali army forces from Mymensingh by a train to stay at Kishoreganj District Council office for 2-3 days which is also nearby our house because Pakistan Airforce bombers were chasing them to locate. The train was delayed more than two hours to reach Kishoreganj. Haider was then a Captain and stationed in Cumilla Cantonment, escaped murder attempt by Pakistan’s army, his right hand was bullet-hit and fractured wrapped-up with a bandage and he was carrying a big pistol at his waistline.

Both of them were waiting till that train arrived at Kishoreganj Railway Station. When I first saw them, I immediately rushed to the Railway Station. It was then an empty platform and I found them talking together. I spoke to them for a long time. The faces of both of them were found very bright, bold and with full of patriotism to uproot the Pakistan’s army from the soil of Bangladesh under any setting. 

He fought in the Bangladesh Liberation War as the second-in-command of the K force under Khaled Mosharraf. After the assassination of the President of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib in a military coup in 1975; he joined a counter coup led by his former commander Khaled Mosharraf. He was killed in another coup along with Mosharraf on 7 November 1975 at Dhaka’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar by his own Sector’s junior army officers, Maj. Asad and Maj. Jalil.

After finishing his graduate studies, Haider joined the Pakistan army as a commissioned officer. He graduated from Pakistan Military Academy and commissioned as an Artillery officer in the 23rd Peshawar Mountain Battery (Frontier Force) in 1965. He was posted at Pano Aqil and at Multan Cantonment where he stayed until 1969. On 9 September 1970, he was promoted to Captain and transferred to Cumilla Cantonment.

He left Kishoreganj in early April, 1971 and went to Brahmanbaria, where he met with officers from the fourth East Bengal Regiment. He went through Teliapara tea garden to India. He returned from India with few Mukti Bahini members. He sabotaged the Mymensingh-Kishoreganj highway and the Musalli Bridge nearby Kishoreganj District Sadar. On 7 October 1971, he joined K force under Khaled Mosharraf as his second-in-command. His unit was mostly composed of students whom he trained in guerrilla warfare. Most of the guerrilla attacks in and around Dhaka in this sector were carried out successfully under his brave command.

He was present as a valiant freedom fighter during the surrender of Pakistan Army on 16 December 1971 at Race Course (now Suhrawardy Uddan), Dhaka {a picture is affixed herewith where everyone would find him (be dressed in a jacket, his picture is encircled) taking Pakistan’s defeated Lt. Gen Neazi and victorious Indian Lt. Gen Aurora to the surrender table to sign the Surrender Instrument}. After the Independence of Bangladesh, he was promoted to Major and made the commanding officer of 13 East Bengal Regiment. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was transferred to Chattogram Cantonment to head the-then nascent School of Artillery.

The way the killing of Major General Khaled Mosharraf, Lt. Col. Haider and Col. Nazmul Huda (accused in Agartala Conspiracy Case) took place, changed the course of the Bangladesh’s fate forever. But they all showed utmost bravery and nationalism in liberating Bangladesh in 1971.

Like most countries, independence did not come easy for Bangladesh. Between March and December, a lot of bloodshed and misery had resulted from the war, but on December 1971, a new country was born. Knowing how much our forefathers had sacrificed so that we can say we are from Bangladesh; it is truly sad to see the devastation in our country today. It is true that 49 years is not old when we consider how long a country has been independent, but we cannot use that as an excuse to surrender. In fact, we have to live up to the expectations of the freedom fighters and create a beautiful Bangladesh without hunger, poverty and corruption.

On March 7, 1971, Bangabandhu Shiekh Mujibur Rahman declared independence at the Dhaka Race Course that mobilized the Bengali nation for resistance. He said, “The struggle this time is for emancipation! The struggle this time is for independence!” As a result of the nationalistic events that took place following the declaration, West Pakistan began ‘Operation Searchlight’ in March of 1971 to crush the Awami League and prevent the formation of a sovereign state.

During the war, Bangladesh gained the support of India and former Soviet Union, which provided economic, military and diplomatic support to the ‘Mukti Bahini’ i.e., the freedom fighters. As a direct witness, being a college student then, many stories, all is utterly inhumane about the Independence War that is vivid in my mind. The night when Operation Searchlight began was incomprehensible. West Pakistan armed forces hopped from house to house lighting them on fire. The actions of the armed forces on March 25, 1971 cannot be forgiven or forgotten.

One reputed foreign reporter, Simon Dring who was present at that time reported that “In 24 hours of killing, the Pakistan Army had slaughtered as many as 7000 people in Dhaka and up to 15,000 people in all of Bangladesh. The Pakistan Army employed tanks, artillery, mortars, bazookas and machine guns against the unarmed population of Dhaka. Their targets were students, local police, intellectuals, political leaders, Awami League supporters, Hindus and ordinary citizens. They carried out their ruthless killing spree with military precision.”

The deadly battle went on for nine long months and by the end of it, three million Bengalis had been killed.

Whenever we confront a non-restrained or controlled desire, we are surely in the presence of a tragedy-in-the-making.

Zia, Ershad and Khaleda are the pictures of depravities. During their rise to power and regimes, decadence reigned supreme. These are the people of malevolent and intentional transmitter of the virus of philosophies of medieval darkness and the defeated forces stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable into a valiant nation.

They are the ghosts and goblins whose appetite for debauchery is insatiable. They are soiled with dirt or soot and harshly ironic or sinister deserving or bringing disgrace or shame to the nation. Sitting in a languid, dirty power parapet, these rat-bags carried out satanic activities.

They created a world that is irredeemably sordid, where neither beauty nor charm nor intelligence nor our glorious liberation war spirit had any value. Dirt, debauchery and the most unbridled course of vice and cruelty reigned supreme.

Their mendacity is irremissible!

Lt. Col. ATM Haider was buried in his hometown in Kishoreganj. Thus, an epic tale of a valorous freedom fighter came to an end.


The writer is an independent political analyst who writes on politics, political and human-centered figures, current and international affairs.