Fall of Dhaka: How Mukti Bahini ‘cleansed’ Santahar town of non-Bengalis

[Shahzaz ud din]

Fall of Dhaka: How Mukti Bahini ‘cleansed’ Santahar town of non-Bengalis
By Farrukh Kamrani
Published: December 16, 2017
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Santahar Railway Station. PHOTO COURTESY: PlacesMap.net

KARACHI: Starting off on March 27, 1971, one of the biggest massacres of modern history saw the streets of Santahar that was splattered with the blood of non-Bengalis.

Official figures at the time suggested that the small town, located in Bogra district of the Rajshahi Division of erstwhile East Pakistan and present day Bangladesh, was home to around 15,000 non-Bengalis — known as Biharis.

Residents lived in various neighbourhoods of the town which was just a few square miles wide.

Dhaka wants Pakistan to apologise for video claiming Mujib didn’t announce BD independence

However, unofficial estimates suggested that in 1971, over 20,000 Biharis lived in Santahar, which was surrounded by rural areas swarming with Bengalis.

The outbreak of a communal riot was looming large over the city for some months, but the tension came to a head on March 26 when enraged Bengalis reacted to the Pakistan Army’s ‘Operation Searchlight’ – launched on the same day in Dhaka – and announced a rally that was to pass through the city.

According to Nawab Hashmi, who was a 16-year-old boy at that time, rally participants – who were Major General Umrao – started pelting the residences of non-Bengalis with stones as they moved through the city. Hashmi recalled how the crowd was shouting ‘Jay Bangla’ slogans and challenging the residents to come out of their abodes.

“The people were too frightened to respond to these provocative calls for direct confrontation until the mob hit a Bihari man who was sitting outside his residence. This sparked a violent confrontation between the two disproportionate groups,” he said.

Hashmi said when the confrontation got underway; Biharis fought valiantly and kept repulsing the repeated attacks which continued through the night. “The people responded to ‘Jay Bangla’ slogans with ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ and ‘Nara-e-Takbeer’.

However, at dawn, a contingent of paramilitary, the East Pakistan Rifles (EPR), arrived from the Naogaon Cantonment and asked the Biharis to lay down their arms. The Bihari’s breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of these soldiers and thought the danger had been averted.

However, after laying down their limited arms – which mostly comprised rods and sticks – the Biharis realised that the “soldiers” were actually rebels who had switched sides and become part of the Bengali insurgency.
Matters had just taken a turn for the very worst as far as the Biharis’ were concerned.

Akhtar Hussain Siddiqui, who was a 26-year-old married man at that time and worked at Ramna Cigarettes Company, said after laying down their arms, the Bihari population was at the mercy of Mukti Bahini, which started East Pakistan’s biggest massacre in a phased, methodical way.

The first mass killing took place in the afternoon of the same day, March 27, at the Jama Masjid of Chaibagan – close to the railway station –where hundreds of people from the surrounding area had taken refuge.

Forgotten pages: The martyrs of Naogaon Cantonment

Muhammad Iqbal, who was at the time a 20-year-old student of Dhaka’s Quaid-e-Azam College, said an armed mob entered the mosque and killed almost all the people present in its open courtyard.

“I was inside the mosque’s hall and the gates were closed. A number of women in the courtyard ran out to save their lives and honour, but drowned as they jumped into the adjoining pond,” he said. “Over 60 people died in the attack.”

The next massacre took place at Ghorahaat, where people of Loco, Shahpur and Bansipur were also seeking refuge. On April 3, armed men attacked this area, killed all the men and set fire to houses after plundering them.

After this brutality, the killers started gathering the women and children of the victims in a hut of bamboo matting that was set up on the northwestern edge of Haat Maidan near Chaibagan mosque. This hut was the slaughterhouse where hundreds of people were killed.

“In the evening, they led these trembling children and barefooted women to the railway station after parading them on Naogaon Road with crowds of Bengalis, standing on both sides of the road and on house tops, booing and poking fun at us,” said Shamim Sanaullah, who was just 16.

The third mass massacre took place at Kalsagram on April 10. On that day, armed killers attacked the factory of the ‘Gramophone’ beeri-wala. On the premises of the factory, the people of surrounding areas, including that of Kalsagram and Gadri Bazaar, had been taking refuge since March 27.

Muhammad Munnawar Khan and his two younger brothers – Tassawur Khan and Jalil Khan – were among the refugees of the factory. Munnawar said the armed killers broke into the factory through its gate and brought all the men out one by one.

“These men were killed with bullets, ram-daos [machetes], swords and even rods. By the evening, when the massacre of the men had been completed, the Mukti Bahini men ordered the women and children either to return to their homes or to go to the railway station,” he said.

Now, almost all the Biharis were gathered at the railway station. These people belonged to Santahar’s various neighbourhoods like Chaibagan, New Colony, Yard Colony, 7 No Yard Watch, Ward Colony, Station Colony, Sahibpara, Babupara, Driverpara, Qulipara, Haludghar, Jogi Phokar, Taal Phokar.

The women and children from Ghorahaat and Kalsagram also joined the other prisoners, who were waiting at the railway station – without food and often without water – for their painful death.

Shahid Ahmed, who was a 10-year-old then, recalls little children dying on the platform for want of milk, medicine and nutrition.

“My six-month-old niece was among the kids who could not survive the starvation. When we went to bury her in the soft earth along the pond close to the station and opposite the Chaibagan mosque, I saw several humps on that ground, each carrying a martyr,” he added.

Siddiqui reminisces how the Mukti Bahini men came to the platform every day to ‘choose’ people to be taken to the bamboo hut of Haat Maidan. “First, they killed the rich and the influential, then the fighting type, then the able-bodied and lastly the women, old men and children,” he added.

Survivors say that on April 15, the Mukti Bahini men got the railway station evacuated and ordered all the people to the Station Colony and its adjoining areas.

“They told us that the station was to be made functional and the train service was now to be resumed. However, two days later, on April 17, they launched their final assault against an unarmed population, mostly comprising women, children and old men,” said Siddiqui.

By the evening of April 17, the followers of Sheikh Mujeeb, the soldiers of Mukti Bahini, had completed the massacre project which started 21 days earlier on March 27. They had annihilated almost the entire population of non-Bengali residents of Santahar.

“On the morning of 17, armed men encircled the entire Station Colony and started closing in from all directions. It was a wholesale massacre in which there was no amnesty for anyone,” said Tahira, who had succeeded in hiding at the time of the attack at residence of a kind-hearted Bengali family.

According to Nawab Hashmi, a scholar and general secretary of Santahar Welfare Association, the total number of non-Bengali residents of Santahar who survived after this methodical killing did not exceed 1,000 by any estimation.

“Actually, the people who survived were either those who were out of the city, or those who were injured and left as dead, or those who hid themselves under dead bodies.

“There were also a handful of people, like myself, who were hidden from the killers by some Bengali. All the other people were annihilated,” another survivor, Syed Pervez Afsar, said.

 

[cloud4000]

Atrocities were committed by both sides. No war is ever clean.

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

Atrocities were committed by both sides. No war is ever clean.

That's what we've been trying to say. But India and Bangladesh are trying to paint Bengalis as the sole victims.

 

[cloud4000]

That's what we've been trying to say. But India and Bangladesh are trying to paint Bengalis as the sole victims.

Usually, the victor in the war controls the historical narrative. It's no wonder the 3 million figure gotten so much traction even though there's no evidence that many people died.

 

[Hamza913]

Atrocities were committed by both sides. No war is ever clean.

Tell that to the Bengalis.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Usually, the victor in the war controls the historical narrative. It's no wonder the 3 million figure gotten so much traction even though there's no evidence that many people died.

That might be generally true when it comes to historians/academics belonging to the victorious nation, but one would expect historians/academics in the West (in this particular case) to take a more 'fact based' approach to reporting on the events of 1971, rather than simply quoting (and taking at face value) the outlandish claims of genocide and millions raped, with no attempt at corroborating those accounts whatsoever.

Then again, there are plenty of self hating Pakistanis who buy into the whole 'genocide and mass rape committed by the Punjabi+Pashtun Army in 1971' account, almost as if without that self loathing no one will take their 'progressive, peacenik credentials' seriously.

 

[saiyan0321]

That might be generally true when it comes to historians/academics belonging to the victorious nation, but one would expect historians/academics in the West (in this particular case) to take a more 'fact based' approach to reporting on the events of 1971, rather than simply quoting (and taking at face value) the outlandish claims of genocide and millions raped, with no attempt at corroborating those accounts whatsoever.

Then again, there are plenty of self hating Pakistanis who buy into the whole 'genocide and mass rape committed by the Punjabi+Pashtun Army in 1971' account, almost as if without that self loathing no one will take their 'progressive, peacenik credentials' seriously.

Actually I am glad that efforts are being placed to correct the historical narrative and we need to remember the sacrifices of pakistanis and the brutality of the muktibahini.

The fact is that we in our self pity and pathetic excuses for self assurance have allowed them to completely hijack the narrative that absurd figures now dominate the playing field.

For God's sake in our books we have highlighted that a major reason were Hindu teachers and Indian involvement which turned away the gullible Bengalis. This is what we teach our generations, so is it really surprising that a portion in pakistan blames the army when we ourselves don't defend our narrative.

It is time to correct this. It time we create our own narrative to combat the false propaganda.

I wholeheartedly support javeds literary effort. He is trying to establish a narrative and only through this we can establish our own narrative.

I am not saying lie. I am simply saying that the portion of history that was lost due to the ink of the victor and the carelessness of the loser, should be brought to light.


Wars have horrors. 1971 was a war.

 

[POPEYE-Sailor]

Ugly Truth Gen Nezi buried in army graveyard who surrendered

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

The fact is that we in our self pity and pathetic excuses for self assurance have allowed them to completely hijack the narrative that absurd figures now dominate the playing field.

Another reason some Pakistanis buy into the Indian narrative without question is that there are sections within Pakistan that (perhaps justifiably) have a strong animosity towards the Army because of the various military coups during Pakistan's history. Given that Pakistan was, for all intents and purposes, under Army control in 1971, the Indian narrative allows anti-Army/military people to keep the Army on the back foot by not just accusing it of poor governance and battlefield failures, but also of completely unjustifiable war crimes such as genocide and mass rape.

The civilians (ZA Bhutto for example) were equally culpable in not wanting to share power with East Pakistan, and discriminatory attitudes towards East Pakistanis/Bengalis were prevalent in West Pakistani society and not just the domain of the military (the military largely reflects the attitudes of the society it is drawn from after all). Military success on the battlefield, defending territory thousands of miles away, surrounded by a hostile India, was always going to be hard, but when you throw in accusations of genocide and mass rape at the command and hands of the Pakistan Army, there is no justification. So Pakistanis that resent the military for its historical interventions in domestic politics have a vested interest in buying into and propagating the Indian narrative of 'the genocide and mass rape of millions of Bengalis in East Pakistan'.

 

[Shahzaz ud din]

Bangladesh must come to terms with the 1971 war holistically, allowing critical discourse to flourish
Anam ZakariaUpdated December 21, 2017
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A tale of repression is etched on the walls of Dhaka. Darkness, beatings, military rule.

These images are juxtaposed with pictures of young girls studying in schools furnished with state-of-the-art modern technologies.

Computer labs and books signal the progress made over the past 46 years. The sun rises; Bangladesh emerges from the shackles of West Pakistani hegemony. Prosperity follows.

On every nook and corner of Dhaka, such murals and images are openly displayed.

They are interspersed with war memorabilia and monuments depicting the struggle of the people of Bangladesh and their eventual victory.

Unlike war images I have seen in other parts of the world, which show soldiers clad in military uniform, ordinary women and men dressed in saris and lungis are seen fighting on the murals and sculptures of Bangladesh's capital.

It is the country's way of telling the world that it was the public that fought and won the war in 1971.

India provided support; it strengthened the indigenous struggle, but without the people’s efforts and their sacrifices, Bangladesh’s independence would not have seen the light of day.

It is an attempt by many in the civil society to salvage that history from being consumed by the bilateral politics of India and Pakistan.

1971 is embedded in public spaces, on the roads and walls, in parks and open fields, in the private and collective memory of Bangladesh. There is no forgetting 1971.

This comes partly from obvious reasons. 46 years is not a long enough time to overcome the trauma.

The generation that survived the war is young enough to tell and retell the stories. And they all have a story to tell; some were bystanders, witnessing the nine-month long war and the aftermath that unfolded before them; some were victims; and others had personally fought in the war.

For them and their children, the war is their identity, the scars engraved in their minds and often on their bodies.

Even today, after 70 years, survivors in India, Pakistan, and what is now Bangladesh, hold vivid memories of the bloodshed and violence of the 1947 Partition, of the loss and rupture.

In comparison, Bangladesh is still a very young country. It is unlikely that these haunting images of 1971 will fade away anytime soon.

Explore: Special report: The Breakup of Pakistan 1969-1971

However, alongside these personal memories, there has also been an effort on the part of the government to reclaim these histories.

This effort in many ways is a response to the silences that followed the war.

After Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination in 1975, an overt attempt was made to revise the war memory in the public discourse.

The new leadership, seen as being pro-Pakistan and anti-India, omitted Pakistan's name from textbooks, making it seem as if East Pakistanis had been fighting against a nameless “attacking force”. Similarly, India’s mention as a “friend of the liberation war” was also erased.

In an even more divisive move, alleged war criminals were given power, some of them even becoming ministers under the new regime.

With this power shift, the ‘people’s narratives’ of the war seemed to recede. The state, as it often does, cherry-picked only the versions of history it deemed fit, in a way that suited its own vision for the newly-independent nation.

But in the recent past, more and more war museums, and killing fields--where mass killings took place--have been set up and memorialised, both by civil society and the state.

While it is essential that history is remembered and retold in a holistic way, and although significant efforts are being made in this regard, one also has to be cautious of the new forms of appropriation of history by the state.

While reclaiming space and narrative, political parties, like military regimes, can be adamant in telling their own version of the truth--versions that garner votes and political support.

The only trouble is that whenever states try to own history, they inevitably promote certain accounts while silencing others.

Nuances get lost, contradictions--which are present in all conflicts--disappear and neatly-packaged truths emerge.

Anyone who challenges this linear, one-dimensional truth can then be construed as anti-state, and in this case, as anti-liberation, which would be tantamount to treachery, a label no one wants or can afford.

The space for discussion, debate, and research shrinks. This process is unfortunately not new to the subcontinent.

While some Pakistani idealogues insist that the country’s foundation was laid in 712 AD when Muhammad bin Qasim stomped in to conquer the region, ridding it of ‘infidel’ influences, and thereby establishing the justification for it being a state with little room for religious minorities, India too has embarked on a process of ‘Hinduising’ its own history.

Most recently, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat claimed that all Muslims are Hindus because India is a land only for the Hindus.

Plurality, dissent and critical thinking are gradually being wiped out, replaced with myopic understandings of the past and present.

Also read: 1971 war: Witness to history

In 2016, a law was proposed in Bangladesh to make it a criminal offense if anyone “carries out any propaganda, campaign against the Liberation War of Bangladesh or the spirit of the Liberation War or Father of the Nation or abets in such acts.”

The draft will be presented at the parliament at the start of next year for approval.

This seems to have been instigated by the political conflict between the Awami League and the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), the two major political parties.

BNP states that Ziaur Rahman, the army general who founded the party and later served as Bangladesh’s president from 1977-81, played a pivotal role in the war. The party claims that it was he who announced independence and hence is the true war hero.

Hasina, Mujib’s daughter and the current leader of the Awami League government, refutes the claim entirely.

To make matters worse, it has also been alleged in some circles that Ziaur Rahman was involved in Mujib’s assassination. Glorifying him is hence unacceptable for Hasina.

The two parties and the women who lead them have also clashed on other matters.

While Hasina and her party maintain that three million people were killed during the war--a figure which Mujib cited--Khalida Zia, Ziaur Rahman’s wife, has doubted the veracity of such high figures.

After the Awami League came to power following the 2008 general elections, it has tried to silence such criticism. In the process, research into war casualties or other angles of 1971 has become off bounds.

Since only certain kinds of narratives about the war are permitted, even when the civil society is active in reclaiming history, only a particular aspect of the history, one that aligns and conforms with the state's national project, is furthered.

As a result, a holistic history has not come forward, either by the state or by the civil society.

While recognising and acknowledging the war and the resulting casualties is undoubtedly of utmost importance, discourse and critical reflections are also instrumental ingredients of any progressive society.

The fear seems to be that such discourse may undermine the impact the war and the scale of the atrocities had on Bangladesh.

Under the influence of this fear, the state does not realise that the experiences of the countless survivors who have lived through and struggled during the war and post-war years cannot be undermined through further research and critical discourse.

Research and discussion around 1971 will only serve to strengthen history. The history belongs to the public, not to a single individual or leader.

The silencing of history and the appropriation of history are two sides of the same coin and it is a dangerous game to play, but one that all three countries--India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh--seem bent on playing.

Read next: Fall of Dhaka: Memories of a bloody December

As Bangladesh tries to seek justice, healing, and come to terms with the nation’s past, it must do so holistically, allowing academic research and analysis to flourish alongside personal histories.

Making such work illegal, or censoring and curbing it will create a fragmented national identity, at odds with itself.

A complete exploration of 1971 and its aftermath must be allowed, especially while survivors are still present as they are one of the most valuable sources of history.

This process was critical for a tolerant India and Pakistan to emerge after 1947 but was often discarded by those in power in favour of state-sponsored histories.

The attempt was, of course, to avoid any uncomfortable truths and challenges to the national projects.

Compared to India and Pakistan, Bangladesh is still a relatively nascent country; a full and honest exploration of 1971-- whether that entails revisiting stories of rape survivors, or of torture and killings of Bengalis, or of non-Bengalis-- will play a crucial part in its nation-making process.

Did you or someone you know witness the war of 1971 firsthand? Share your experiences with us at blog@dawn.com