A hurriedly arranged pilgrimage

It was the 21st of February several years ago. I had to attend an event that evening in Agartala. Since our childhood, we grew up with a deep feeling of attraction and reverence to this day. In those days, it was observed as Shaheed Dibash, to show our deepest respect to our Language Martyrs Salam, Barkat, Rafique, Jabbar, Shafiur, and all others who have laid down their lives for gaining recognition of Bangla as one of the state languages of Pakistan.

The Pak leadership always treated them (West Pakistanis) superior to us in every respect. We were discriminated against in all spheres of life and the civil-military nexus of the Pak ruling class treated us as second-class citizens and a virtual colony to them, a form of neo-colonialism. On this day we used to take a vow anew every time to remain vigilant about our rights and achieve them in due course.

Bangla was recognized as one of the state languages of Pakistan as a result of the 1952 movement and bloodshed of our heroes. Meantime due to discrimination at all levels and every economic sphere of life, Bengalis were getting restless day by day to see an end to the injustice and get back proper political and economic rights.

Waves of movements were raised one after another and the Pak establishment was surviving by deception and use of crooked political powers and sheer military strength. We remember those Pakistani days when early in the morning all and sundry visited Shahid Minar and Azimpur Graveyard with flower bouquets in hand and the immortal song 'Amar Bhai er Roktey rangano ekushey February.....' on our lips.

In 1971 when we fought our Great War of Liberation, we drew inspiration from all previous anti-Pak movements, especially the Language movement. The nature of celebrations of the day changed in free Bangladesh, Victory celebrations together with remembrance of the Martyrs were the go of the day to which another dimension was added by the organization of the Ekushey Boi Mela.

The foundation of the famous Book Fair was laid by legendary Chitta Ranjan Saha of Muktadhara and also Puthighar. Later it was taken up by the Bangla Academy and our pride the Ekushey Boimela has turned out to be one of the biggest Book Fairs in the world.

Another group of Bangladeshis led by Mr. Rafiqul Islam of Cumilla and Mr. Abdus Salam of Chattogram, residents of Vancouver organized their friends from different countries to achieve recognition of 21st February as the International Mother Language Day of the world. They formed an organization Mother Language Lovers of the World.

MLLW started lobbying with the UN and later Bangladesh Government had to intervene to achieve the recognition. It was in 1999. Since 2000 the whole world is observing this day as International Mother Language Day. The credit of course goes to many Bangladeshis assisted by other Nationalities.

This day is now observed to recognize the importance of the survival of all the languages of the world and their development so that the World remains culturally rich and diversified. It may be mentioned here that Mr. Rafiqul Islam (who has unfortunately succumbed to malignancy not long ago) and MLLW received the highest state honor of Bangladesh Swadhinata Padak.

On the occasion that I was talking about in the beginning, I had to attend such an event organized to observe Amar Ekushey and International Mother Language Day in Agartala which was to be addressed by the then Tripura Chief Minister Sri Manik Sarkar and was to be attended by a host of other dignitaries.

To couple with this program, I thought of combining this trip with a visit to three very important to us places which could be managed without much difficulty. First, let me name the places. The first one is Kullapathar Memorial Graveyard close to the Indian border which falls under Kasba. The second one is Salda Nadi, a place also not far from Kasba, close to Brahmanpara of Cumilla.

The third one is a village near Gangasagar where one of our Bir Shrestha Shaheed Mostofa Kamal laid down his life on the altar of freedom killing as many of the enemy forces as he could while saving all of his troops giving them covering fire. All these above named three places are sacred to me like many others in our Motherland which are soaked with the fresh blood of our brave sons who brought us freedom, dignity, respect, and prosperity.

  So I chalked out a plan and left Chattogram by comfortable Mohanagar afternoon train towards Akhaura. My wife Anjana and son Anindya were accompanying me to see such important places related to our Freedom Struggle which is close to all of our hearts. They were also interested in the short foreign trip which was to follow.

By the way, those of you who have not been to Agartala recently will fail to recognize the old leisurely town they saw at the beginning of our 1971 Muktijuddha. It became militarily busy immediately and remained so till our Victory was achieved and it went back to its laid-back life. In recent years the State capital saw rapid development and is developing as a modern city very fast keeping its Royal architectural touch.

Anyway, we reached Akhaura at 7:30 in the evening of 20th February as scheduled and settled in the pre-arranged room at the Railway Officer's Retiring room. The piyaju and tea evening snacks was delicious. While the mother and son got engaged with their tabs/laptops I went out with young Simon, the caretaker of the rest house to fix a vehicle for our rendezvous the next day.

It was not surprising to me that all the vehicle drivers knew exactly what our destinations were. So, it was very easy for Simon to fix up the timings, seriality of the expositions to be visited, and the transport charges. It was finalized that the vehicle will pick us up at 8 am from the Station Rest House, proceed to Kullapathar. After spending some time there we can visit Salda Nadi and then the memorial of Bir Shrestha Shaheed Mostofa Kamal.

Hopefully, we will be done by lunch time and the same vehicle could drop us at the border check post before 4 pm after taking a quick lunch somewhere on the way. It may be mentioned here that this check post is not busy and you can complete formalities at both the countries borders in less than one hour. Once you step out of the Indian check post you are already in Agartala city and go anywhere in the city in less than half an hour.

The vehicle is fixed; we had a simple dinner and went for a relaxing night's solemnity From midnight we were happy to note that the music made immortal by the martyrs of our Language Movement started being audible from here, there, and everywhere. We went to sleep under the influence, sound, and pride of the music Amar Bhaiyer..., the immortal creation by the duo of Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury- and Shaheed Altaf Mahmud. It has by now been translated into many many languages of the world. We got up early the next morning since a long day was ahead of us.

A quick breakfast was arranged and by 8:30 am we were on our prefixed vehicle proceeding towards Kullapathar. The young and enthusiastic caretaker Simon desired to accompany us and we were more than happy to accommodate, he being a local boy and knew the geography of the region well. We took the regional highway Brahmanbaria-Cumilla from Akhaura. En route we crossed Kasba Upazila headquarters, Mandabhag, Saldanadi, and finally reached our destination in about an hour.

As we passed through the abovementioned places the names flashed through my mind as venues of fierce fighting between our Freedom Fighters and the Pak occupational force. Many of the places in the area saw many ambushes of the Pak army and their collaborators at different locations. Some of the important strategic locations like Saldanadi changed hands several times. All these areas came under Sector 2 of our Muktibahini having HQ at nearby Melaghar in Indian Tripura and was commanded ably by Maj Khaled Mosharrof BU (later Shaheed Maj Gen).

He had a very competent 2nd in Command in Capt ATM Hyder( later Shaheed Lt Col) who took over as the Sector Commander of Sector2 when his superior moved to a higher responsibility as Brigade strength K Force Commander. Sector2 was constituted by the Officers and Men of 4th East Bengal Regiment.

They revolted from Brahmanbaria on 26/27th March and established their first HQ at Teliapara of Habigonj and later had to shift it a couple of more times to finally settle in Melaghar, not far from Sonamura and Bangladesh border. By that time Men from East Bengal Rifles, Police, Ansars, and common patriotic Students, Workers, and Peasants augmented his forces. Equipped with little training, still fewer weapons but with high spirits, they made a formidable force.

Maj Khaled was in charge of Freedom Fighters in the Regions of Cumilla, Dhaka, and Faridpur. He had divided his area of operations into several subsectors. salda Nadi and Mandbhag were two of them that saw some heavy fighting from time to time and virtually made the rail route from Chittagong and Dhaka to Sylhet unusable for the Pakistanis.

They were under constant threat of ambush. Some of the renowned Freedom Fighters in this area were Abdus Saleque Chowdhury, Mahmud Hasan, Shaheed Subedar Belayet B U, Subedar Wahab BU, Capt Dr. Akhtar Ahmed BP, Lt Jamil D Ahsan BP, and the list can go on and on. On 5th December, Kasba was finally freed of the enemy.

Before that from 12th till 14th November the fierce battle of Salda Nadi took place resulting in the total victory of our FFs over 30 Punjab of Pakistan army. A few Pakis were arrested and shown to the public to raise their morale.In these penultimate battles, 51 of our valiant Freedom Fighters lost their lives. A local Freedom Fighter Mr. Abdul Karim donated his own land where these valiant sons of the soil were put to eternal rest with dignity and due honor.

It's a hillock where they are in eternal sleep. Recently Bangladesh Government has made proper arrangements to beautify the spot according to its historical importance and solemnity We reached the foot of the hillock just at 10 am. Since it was 21st February (International Mother Language Day), a national holiday, a lot of visitors already were there at the spot. Slowly we went up the flight of stairs barefoot to approach the graves of the 51 valiant freedom fighters.

We found the graves very well organized in rows and columns, well cleaned and suitably painted. Each of the graves carries a plaque with the name of the Shaheed, his place of origin, dates of birth, and Martyrdom. The youngest of them was a 16-year-old adolescent. The graves included that of Subedar Belayet Hossain BU and also an Engineer amongst others.

Every visitor was disciplined, maintained proper decorum as such a place demands. Some offered flowers, some others prayed. We went around the place visiting all the 51 graves, prayed in silence for our heroes, and spent a few more minutes standing in front of the Memorial Graveyard in silence to show respect to those who have sacrificed the most precious thing they had for our better future and to put an end to the Paki oppression and disparity. (To be continued...)


The writer is a travel enthusiast and history buff.