Down Memory Lane: The Devils Of 1971 Bangladesh War

Part-3
The Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) is well-known and long-familiar both at home and abroad as a killing outfit which murdered millions of our people in 1971 in league with Pakistan's military junta. It is also well-known for its worst war criminality in the annals of history.Even if we also hark-back the years of 2013 and 2014, we can again clearly see the vivid pictures of the real violent world of BNP and JeI and how these two political outfits brought about terrible excruciations to our people in the country.

We cannot and shall never forget the Talibani or ISIS style of brutalities they thrust upon our innocent people during that mayhem.Behind their gray stone walls, there is a load of rubbish, and next to this rubbish are ill people who always wanted to ravage our glorified achievements which we attained in 1971. It is a big shock difficult to absorb.

A boomerang as their assault stupefies, it will recoil to their own courtyard emphatically if we remain strongly united. In truth, since they are collectors of miscellaneous useless objects or collect things that have been discarded by others, their places are bound to be the outfall at a far-off grime place. A famous quote from William Shakespeare reminds us, "Hell is empty and all the devils are here" and it was truly true that all the devils, mostly wearing robes, bearded et al ravaged the land of Bangladesh in 1971 using or selling the name of our holy religion - Islam.

I have always been apolitical till now. Nor do I have any affiliations with any socio-cultural organizations or human rights organisations as yet. And I shall not do so unto my death.But I participated in all glorious movements of the Bengalis since 1966 and I fought on the frontline as a freedom fighter along with many of my friends to liberate Bangladesh War in 1971 from the cruel clutches of Pakistan's army and their savage local mango-twigs.

In 1971, I was a college aged at 16 plus. For obtaining of Bangladesh in 1971 was invaluable for us. How painful was it - what unspeakable sufferings we encountered with Pakistan's savage army and their local mango-twigs, particularly Jamaati mass-murderers - I saw in my own eyes from a very close proximity. I shall never pardon these hellish creatures under any setting.

I have come from a highly respectable family of Kishoreganj District Sadar. So, on my freedom fighter commander's instructions, I had to come to the Kishoreganj Town almost on a regular basis to inspect the positions of more than 800 Pakistani armies stationed here, the terrible Bengali Al-Badr force belonged to Jamaat-e-Islami, Peace Committee members…all the manslayers and pay close attention to the level of their activities and report to my commander to enable him to chalk-out his plan suitably to attack those horrific enemies and thus to batter them. 

Since I was a boy of pleasing in appearance, I had to then visit the Kishoreganj Town like a most ordinary beggar wearing very old and torn lungi and shirt and bare-footed with brushless-hair. Teen age is not like cowardliness - the trait of lacking courage, but this age bracket is unpreventable in showing boldness to achieve something which is dauntingly unachievable ("A boyoshjenobhirukapurushnoi, a-boyoshjainathemey)." For attaining Bangladesh in 1971, we were almost mad, daring and avant-garde!

The Pakistani armies, whenever they saw me or anybody else, on the very first instance, behaved with us so rough and tough that they branded us as 'Hindu' and sounded out aloud in Urdu, "Tum Hindu hai. Kaprautharo" (you are a Hindu and pull-up your under-robe) to check our genital organ - Muslim identity.

They and their local mango-twigs treated us all as Hindus and Bangladesh's liberation war was nothing, but to occupy Bangladesh by them to declare it annexed with India as a Hindu state. And thus they made evil campaigns continuing at full strength or intensity against the creation of Bangladesh both at home and abroad. In the Muslim world, they also made a smear campaign unabatedly that the Hindus had destroyed all mosques and madrasahs and in those places, they had erected temples for the worship of their deities.

The brutal mass-massacres were going on in the land of Bangladesh mendaciously using or selling our holy religion - Islam, voicing aloud, "Islam gelo, Islam khatrameyhaidushmonkapash" (the religion - Islam was going to be finished) by Hindus and their buddies (i.e., us, in other words - the Bengali Freedom Fighters). The Lucifer Muslim countries did fall to their dirty tricks and they also played begrime punting against our just cause to establish Bangladesh.This temerity of them all was or is irremissible to us under any setting.

Almost all Hindu and Muslim families left Kishorganj Town and its surrounding areas for taking shelter in the remote hamlets of Bangladesh, but mostly in India leaving all of their belongings to their houses before the savage Pakistani armies entered our Town on 20th April, 1971. Our immediate neighbor Hindu businessmen like Shemlal Paul, Judhisty Pal, Chintaharan Paul and Bhogowan Ghosh who were like our grand-fathers (we fondly called them 'Dadu)' left their houses leaving all of their belongings towards early April, 1971 for India.

Along with them, their wives (we fondly called them 'Didimoni') and daughters and sons - our revered aunts and uncles like Monumashi, Gita mashi, Sunumashi, Jhorimashi, Kanumashi, Panna mama, Badal mama (Badal mama is also my friend), Khoka dada and Hridoy dada. A heartbreaking unusual difficult situation bechanced then.

Everyone along with us were then weeping with lachrymose. They departed their ancestral homes in deep pensive mood. We didn't know whether we would be able to see them again in their patrimonial homes. Nor did they know whether they would able to meet us again. We were very beloved to them and they were also loving to us in the similar way.  When I was writing this piece of write-up, my eyes were welling-up. The entire land of Bangladesh belongs to our people. Who were those hellish creatures to dictate us to obey their rule without any question?

On 18th April, 1971, we departed our big house which was erected during the last part of the British regime, may be in 1942 or 1943 leaving all belongings to initially take shelter at our village home at TarailUpazilla about 15-20 KM from our Kishoreganj residence which was fully unknown to us except my lucent lawyer father of 51 plus years' old. We took only one thing - our father's John-Barrel Gun of the US origin which he bought during the time of 1940. The earthen road communication was then too bad and most unfit. We hired a cart and went to our village home taking more than 26 hours' time experiencing with all discommodes. 

All belongings including gold and money from the desolated houses belonged to Muslims and Hindus were stolen away first by Kabuliwallahs (during the pre-independence period of Bangladesh, there were so many Kabuliwallah people, each above six feet high, mostly from Afghanistan and Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province) and more than that, the Bihari Muslim people (Urdu-speaking), were huge in numbers at Kishoreganj. 

After the brutal partition of Indian sub-continent in 1947 - after creating two independent and sovereign States - India and Pakistan by the notorious British regime, the Bihari people migrated to the-then East Pakistan mostly from India's Bihar Province and also from other States of India showing their allegiance to Pakistan.

Both the Biharis and Kabuliwallahs were living in all parts of the-then East Pakistan, but always showing their haughtiness to us and making ill-treatment to the Bengali people who are the original owner of the land of the-then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). They did never coalesce with our culture whereas we have allowed them to live in this land of Bangladesh. (To be continued…)

Anwar A Khan is an independent political analyst