Of blood and fire

The situation on the ground in East Pakistan had by then developed into a full-blown civil war.

Anwar Shahid, the author of the diary titled Padma Surkh Hai, records how things developed when he and his host family came back from their brief sojourn to the Indian border town of Behrampur. On the one hand, the forces that called themselves freedom fighters were making a list of those who decided to return to the town taken over by the West Pakistani army, so that they could be treated as ‘collaborators of occupation force’, and, on the other, their credentials as ‘patriotic citizens’ were suspect in the eyes of those defending the writ of the martial law government. One important vehicle for imposing this discrimination in favour of the order was how the bank accounts were to be operated.

One recalls how Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had ordered before the launch of Operation Searchlight that West Pakistanis would be banned from operating their bank accounts. We saw in the account of Siddiq Bilwani that big businessmen and civil servants were able to act proactively against this (‘illegal’) order by taking out huge amounts of cash with the connivance of bank managers and sacks of currency notes were airlifted to West Pakistan using PIA. This time, the victims were those who had fled across the border to save their lives and had decided to return believing the radio announcements that normal life could be resumed. Now they were required to have their bank cheques countersigned by the local martial law authorities. A cut-off date was announced and it was ensured that all (Bengali) government servants would be allowed to operate their accounts only if they had been present on their duties on that particular date.

The situation on the ground had by then developed into a full-blown civil war. Shahid mentions the conversation with a non-commissioned officer of Pakistan Army who hailed from Sialkot and was stationed at Rajshahi. The Naik narrated to him what happened when after the launch of the Operation, the Major in charge of the town as deputy administrator called the superintendent of Police to his office. The SP refused to come, saying that he took his orders from Dhaka. He was, however, forced to come to the martial law office. He finally came, accompanied with armed guards; he himself was armed too. During the course of the interview, a Captain took out his pistol and put it on the SP’s chest and he was arrested along with his companions. As the news reached the police station, the policemen started firing and the army returned the fire. It was said that the casualties numbered more than a thousand on both sides.

The East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) stationed in the town had still not rebelled, but since there were news of their rebellion from nearby towns of Nawab Ganj and Naugan, they were also disarmed. The EPR from the other towns attacked the army at Rajshahi. According to the Naik, they were accompanied by Indian troops. They wanted to target the ammunition depot but the ammunition was shifted to another place. The Naik said that the attackers knew of their schedule and they fired more heavily during meal time. Sometimes the troops had to go without a proper meal for several days. Not certain of their survival, the soldiers once decided to cook chicken. The Naik had a pound of ghee which he decided to consume, thinking that it might be one of their last meals. When they sat down to eat the masala chicken, a mortar shell came and exploded in the room. The others lost their appetite, but the Naik decided to go ahead with eating and finished off the whole chicken on his own.

The West Pakistani troops had been decimated and were waiting for reinforcement to come. At that time, a request for reinforcement came from Pabna. A Major, along with a Captain and a Lieutenant and a handful of soldiers, left for Pabna but by then it had been taken over by the rebel forces. They were encircled; the Captain came under fire and got injured. A jawan went to pick him but he was also fired upon. The remaining soldiers decided to save their lives by changing into civilian clothes and started back towards Rajshahi. But all of them were caught on the way and were maimed and killed. The dead bodies of only a few of them could be found.

Apart from the fighting among the several armed groups, the civilian population of different ethnic and political backgrounds was considered fair game and was being treated with arson, killing, torture and rape on a large scale. The younger son of Shahid’s host family was hospitalised for an ailment. He narrates in his diary how, when he went to the hospital to visit him, a doctor told him that the hospital had received two victims of rape who were almost dead. On another visit to the hospital, he looked into the children’s ward and saw many children younger than 10 years. All of them had wounds on their throats — they were survivors of attacks on civilian neighbourhoods. Many of them had lost every single member of their families. Those still continuing their existence in the town had to face other hardships; apart from a nightly curfew imposed at 5 pm, there was an acute shortage and brutal black marketing of essential supplies. On the other hand, the looted goodies — from expensive saris to household utensils — had lost their value and were being sold at a fraction of their price. Shahid notes that among the buyers of these items, there were no Bengalis.

Shahid finally decided to return to Lahore, via Dhaka, in August 1971, but he was greatly troubled about what he had seen and felt during the continuing civil war. As a responsible witness, he got his diary published — unavoidably censored — in the daily Musawat, Lahore, during November. Hanif Ramay and Shafqat Tanveer Mirza were instrumental in bringing this account to light. But the diary was, regretfully, all but ignored.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2012.