Dr. Abdur Rabb
Published in the CanadaBdNews.com on January 5, 2011
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All hell broke loose on the night of March 25, 1971. I do not think it is possible for anyone to understand what we went through that night unless one has actually experienced that hell. The following is only an attempt to describe to the reader what happened that night. Before I go any further, I shall identify the place where we were located that night.
Located to the south of the Vice-Chancellor’s residence, the living quarters of the Dhaka University professors are separated by a wide road. The quarters on the British Council side are on the west side of the road (west block), and the other quarters are on the east (east block). The quarters on the east are on the Udoyon School side of the road. This block is protected by a wall that surrounds the area with a high steel gate near the school. A gate-keeper guarded the gate at night. A paved road runs through the block. My family and I lived on the third floor of building number 28 which is located at the southern end of the area. Our building faced south. A few feet from our building is the 6-feet high cement wall. Next to the wall is a road. Jogonnath Hall, the Hindu students’ residence, lies some 150 feet south of that road. The large football field is in front of the Hall. Dr. Govinda Chandra Dev was the provost of the Hall for a long time. Dr. Dev’s heart was as large as an ocean. It is possible that at his persuasion the University authorities allowed the poor non-Muslim fourth-class employees to build many thatched huts on the southern part of the football field. Many families lived in these huts. We could see the Hall, the football field and the thatched huts from the balcony of our third floor flat. Our building has an extension at the back. This extension housed a kitchen and a tiny storage room on each floor.
On March 7, 1971 Bongobondhu Majibur Rahman spoke to a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people at the old Race Course. In a thundering voice he declared the war of liberation (shadhinota) and freedom (mukti) from the military Government of Pakistan. He asked all Bengalis to get ready with whatever they had in their possession to face the enemy. I feel very proud and honoured that I could hear Bongobondhu’s speech from a short distance of his podium that day. Almost 40 years later I could still hear an echo of Bongobondhu’s voice, and see his face in my mind’s eye.
After March 7 the political situation deteriorated rapidly. Even the air felt hot. Dozens of us professors met on the paved road of our block every day, and discussed the events of that day. We all had dark patches of cloud over our faces. Everyone had the same question: what is next? We all felt that something terrible was going to happen. The only thing that we did not know was what that terrible thing would be, and when it was going to happen.
The time of reckoning finally came on the night of March 25. I was correcting the home work of our eight-year old son Hamid who was attending the Dhaka American School at that time. Because of the political turmoil in the city, the authorities closed the school and gave the students a large amount of home work. We parents were asked to correct their work. It was just about 11:45 p.m. when I heard the sound of the first gunshot coming from the Dhanmondi direction. Right away I felt that the hell we were afraid of had actually broken. The sound of the first gunshot was followed by a few sporadic ones coming from the same direction. I ran to the gate-keeper and asked him to lock the gate. That was one of the smartest decisions I ever made in my life. Within minutes of my return to our flat sounds of explosion of shells fired from tanks, and machine-gun fire deafened our ears. The Pakistani army was firing at the Jagonnath Hall from the road just a few feet from our building. We all moved quickly to the small 6X8 feet storage room at the rear of our flat. We were six people: myself, my wife, Hamid, our one-month old daughter Shirin, a young girl who worked for us, and a Hindu student who somehow escaped from the Hall and took shelter with us. I supported the wooden door of the storage room with wood from the wooden box in which a refrigerator was shipped to us from Canada. The army was firing continuously. It was something like a hail storm in which thousands of tennis-ball-size hails were falling continuously on the corrugated tin roof of a house in the village. That deafening noise also came from other areas of the University. The noise and the heat of the room made Shirin cry frequently. My wife tried to pacify her as best as possible.
The tandob lila continued the whole night. Next morning the army made the following announcement on the loud speaker: “Close your widow curtains. If you open them and look outside, we shall shoot to kill you on sight.” Curtains were already drawn on all our windows. However, I peeped through a small opening of the curtain of one window. I saw bulldozers making large trench-like holes on the football ground and burying many dead bodies in those holes. A number of soldiers with machine guns surrounded the site of the mass grave. Later I learned that they killed most of the students and employees of the Hindu students’ residence, as well as Dr. G. C. Dev. They also killed many people of the thatched huts on the field. I was told that they set those huts on fire and, as the occupants of those huts tried to run away, they were killed with machine guns. As we now know, the Pakistani Government thought that the Hindus of East Pakistan were traitors; hence they wanted to eliminate Hindus.
In the morning of March 26 we saw a young boy of about eight years of age trying to walk fast northward on the paved road of our block. He was limping, and his body was covered with blood. He was wounded, but somehow escaped the Jogonnath Hall carnage.
The army imposed a 24-hour curfew. They continued firing shells and machine guns again the whole night of March 26. As in the previous night, we spent the whole night sitting or standing in the storage room.
It is possible that the closed gate prevented the army from entering our block. Later I came to know later that they entered the west block and killed some of our colleagues there.
I believe that I made many of the important decisions of my life instantly. It so happened that all those decisions proved to be correct. I did the same on the morning of March 27. As soon as the curfew was lifted for a brief period, I asked my wife to get ready to leave the area. I was sure that we would be the next target of the army. Where could we go? There was no wall or gate at my father-in-law’s house near the Kata Bon mosque in South Dhanmondi. The army could enter his house easily. Hence I decided against moving into his house. We went to Baitul Qadri on Old Elephant Read where my brother-in-law’s mother-in-law lived. I had three reasons for taking shelter in her house. First, she lived on the third floor of her building which was well-protected by a steel gate on the first floor. Secondly, as immigrants from west Bengal, everybody in her family spoke Urdu and Bangla. I felt that in case the army came to kill us, our relatives would be able to communicate with them in Urdu and somehow save us. Thirdly, our maoi shaheba was the younger sister of Ghani Khan Chowdhury, the powerful Railway Minister of the central government of India at that time. I felt that it would be difficult for the army to kill the relatives of Ghani Khan Chowdhury.
I loaded our VW Beetle with some of our valuable belongings. My colleagues in the area were upset with me because, they said, by leaving the area I was producing fear in their hearts. I did what I believed was right at that time. I drove to Baitul Qadri with my family including the girl who worked for us. The Hindu student who was staying at our flat went to a place which he thought was safer for him. On the way I saw thousands of people leaving the city on foot. Many of them carried their belongings in gattis over their heads.
We heard that Pakistani soldiers killed Bengalis who possessed books of Rabindranath Thakur. Since my wife graduated from the University of Dhaka with a degree in Bangla literature, we had many of his books in our flat. On the morning of March 28 when the curfew was again lifted for a brief period, I drove to our flat in order to hide Tagore’s books. The whole block looked like a ghost town. All the people of our block left the area and moved to places which they considered safer.
We stayed at Baitul Qadri for ten days. A few times we climbed on the roof of the building and saw smoke coming from buildings set on fire by the army, especially in the old Dhaka areas. On March 27 when we arrived at Baitul Qadri the first floor of the building was vacant. A day or two after our arrival there the army forcefully occupied that floor and made it a military camp. They did not ask the owner of the building for permission to make it their camp.
I would like to add a few words about what happened to my Chacha, Shilpi Adul Latif on March 25. For many years prior to that eventful day he wrote, composed and sang songs to inspire Bengalis to rise against the Pakistanis Government. He used to lead protest marches on the streets of Dhaka singing ora amar mukher kotha kaira nite chay,and other similar songs. The activities of Chacha infuriated the Pakistanis for many years. They tried to silence him many times in the past, but failed. This time they planned to eliminate him on the night of March 25. They invaded his house in the Second Capital and destroyed all its contents including his books of hand-written songs. At least 1000 of 3,500 songs that he wrote were lost forever that day. Fortunately the army could not kill him that night. On the advice of friends Chacha and his family had already left their home a few days earlier. He hid himself from place to place in villages during the next nine months. Before he left for the villages, he came to visit us at Baitul Qadri. He looked like a dead man. He was weeping profusely not because of his own sufferings, but because of the massacre of his Bengali brothers and sisters whom he loved so much. After liberation Bongobondhu personally called him and gave him a high position in his Government.
In conclusion I would like to make a few comments of my own. We gained independence at a great sacrifice. Our brothers and sisters gave an ocean of blood; our mothers, sisters and daughters gave their all—their dignity; and countless millions of our people passed through a terrible nightmare. After the hellish activities of the Pakistani army over a period of nine months, the morning sun finally rose on the green fields of Bangladesh. We now have a tremendous responsibility of proving ourselves worthy of all those sacrifices. Let us take good care of the freedom fighters who are alive today. I still see on the television screens a lungi-clad old freedom fighter pedalling a rickshaw to earn a livelihood. I also see another freedom fighter making paratas in a small and dark room as an employee of a tea stall. Many families of shahid freedom fighters are now facing financial hardships. A majority of our freedom fighters were poor peasants and labourers. We need to give them proper recognition and respect. We do not even talk much about the birangonas any more. Many graves of freedom fighters are yet to be identified and proper arrangements for showing respect to them to be made. We have achieved independence from Pakistan; but we have not achieved freedom from corruption, extremism, poverty, illiteracy, and mistreatment of the poor whether they are chashas, rickshaw- peddlers or buas. We all are the children of our mother Bangla. We have to take care of each other and treat everyone as equal. I have no affiliation to any political party; I love my mother Bangladesh and all my Bengali brothers and sisters equally. I believe that the present Prime Minister Honourable Sheik Hasina has sincere intensions to liberate Bangladesh from the ills from which the country is still suffering. We hope and pray that she succeeds in achieving the positive goals that she has set before her.
I also have a special message for the probashi Bangladeshis of North America. Most of us have food on the table, clothes on our backs, roof on our heads, and access to good education and medical care. Some of our brothers and sisters have been doing extraordinarily well in businesses and other fields endeavour. Countless millions of our brothers and sisters in Bangladesh are not as fortunate as we are. We know that governments cannot do everything for a nation. I think it is the duty of everyone of us to go to our own villages and mohallas, identify their needs, and help them in whatever way we can to better their conditions. Let us also buy Bangladeshi-made clothes which are good products and now available in many major stores of North America. JOY BANGLA!