Let us not forget our people’s supreme sacrifice. Long live Bangladesh. Down with the war criminals and their buddies!
by Anwar A. Khan
The year 1971 is remarkably eventful in the struggles for Bangladesh’s independence. December is also called the Month of Victory as we achieved Bangladesh on 16 December 1971 as an independent and sovereign state. We should honour our freedom fighters, our millions killed intentionally and with premeditation by the Pakistani military junta and their local mango-twigs in 1971. Remember the sacrifices they made in duty towards Bangladesh. The Greek philosopher Thucydides once said, “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.” And we followed this spirit in 1971 to attain Bangladesh.
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| Kids in Bnagladesh; image courtesy: sitarasstory.com |
This also holds true to the cause of deep love and patriotism of our people for creating our motherland. In writing this piece, I bear the year 1971 clearly in my mind with distinct mental discernment. My heart aches and tears well up in my eyes. During our Independence War of 1971, I was a college student and witnessed many barbaric incidents committed by the griffins like Pakistani Army, Jamaat-e-Islami, its student wing IslamiChhatra Sangha (ICS), and their death squads Al-Badr and Al-Shams (auxiliary forces of the barbarous Pakistani Army) like sub-humans.
We have to fight these culprits till they are reduced to ashes. Loving hearts do not understand that those belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami want it all. Neither talk nor love will change their minds. Only defeat will be their downfall.The top concern for Al-Badr and Al-Shams forces was annihilating anything and everyone that was considered a threat to the Jamaat-e-Islamis during our glorious Liberation War. These evil forces carried out mass killings, genocide, and arrested people simply to send a message and keep Bangladesh-loving people stifled. Many were sent to nearby extermination camps where all of them were brutally killed.
Our countrymen suffered horrific crimes at their bloodstained hands, more so than any people or nation ever has in all of history. It cannot be understated. This is a fact of which most of the young generations of our country are ignorant. They should and learn about those sub-humans and griffins.
The supreme sacrifices of our patriots brought Bangladesh into being and happiness in our hearts. I can remember here what French Novelist Marcel Proust once said, “Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” As we know, in Islam, creating social discord or disorder, breach of peace, rioting, bloodshed, pillage or plunder and killing of innocent persons anywhere in the world are all considered most inhuman crimes.
During those most difficult times in 1971, Al-Badr concentration camp was not very far from our residence atKishoreganj Town (now Kishoreganj District Sadar) and I was then a college student. Duk-bunglow (now the District Council Building), the Pakistan army’s local headquarters, was also the same distance from our house. As an eye-witness, I set forth a very brief record of a few past incidents of certain atrocious cruelty in 1971.
Propaganda
Professor Mahtabuddin, who taught Political Science at Gurudayal College, Kishoreganj at the time, was the Jamaat-e-Islami Chief of the-then Kishoreganj Sub-Division (now district). I saw him in countless times encouraging Al-Badr force to kill innocents. He used to visit the Al-Badr concentration camp situated at the Bunglow of the-then Kishoreganj Railway Station Master (after forcibly driving away the station-master and his family from their allotted quarter), to boost them up and kill more in the name of our holy religion - Islam. Innumerable people were thus slaughtered. Al-Badr and Al-Shams outfits throughout Kishoreganj District were under his direct operational command.
One afternoon, sometime in August 1971, an innocent boy was caught by Al-Badr killing outfit. He was inhumanely tortured on the main road in broad daylight near the Kishoreganj Railway station. He was bayoneted as he groaned and bled profusely. He was then tied with strong ropes behind a Rickshaw with his legs pointing skyward. They committed all these atrocities pronouncing “Narayetakbir, Allahu-akbar. Pakistan Zindabad. Pakistan is the holy place of Islam.” He was forced to say “Pakistan Zindabad,” but he never did so. Rather, he repeatedly said “Joy Bangla” and “Joy Bangabandhu.” A microphone was installed to the Rickshaw and then campaigns were made parading the poor dying boy throughout the town, signaling the same dire consequences would befall upon the MuktiBahini and their supporters.
It created a tremendous panic throughout the town. Professor Mahtab came, saw him, and with a great smile, applauded his accomplices asking them to make all-out efforts to catch similar people and encouraged them to eliminate the so-called enemies of their beloved Pakistan with equal brutality. The boy then died a martyr’s death for the cause of this motherland. His body was refused for burial and allowed to be eaten by vultures, jackals, dogs and other human-flesh eaters.
Slaughter
I shall now narrate another ghastly incident. One afternoon in 1971 (possibly in September), I was passing through the main road from Kishoreganj Railway Station to Newtown area. Upon reaching the front of the house of Advocate Emdad Mia, I found that some members of Al-Badr were pronouncing “Narayetakbir, Allahu-akbar” over a boy who they had beaten and had then made to forcibly lie down on the grass. They slaughtered that boy with a big knife as one usually does to sacrifice cows on Eid-ul-Azha day. The two pieces of his body were then thrown into the fenland beside the road for eating by the vultures, jackals, dogs and other human-flesh eaters.
Shootings
The river Narasunda is nearby our house in Kishoreganj. During the months of August right up to early December 1971, I saw how many youths were inhumanely tortured and taken blind-folded near the banks of the river. They were brutally bayoneted and shot with pronunciation of “Narayetakbir, Allahu-akbar.” Afterwards, they kicked them into the Narasunda River. They permitted no dead bodies for burial.
Rape
These sub-humans were also directly involved in rape, arson, and looting and burning of houses of innumerable people. I saw how they helped supply our honourable women-folk to the local army headquarters at Kishoreganj for their sexual enjoyment.
Concentration camp
On the morning of December 17, 1971 (Kishoreganj Town was liberated that morning), I entered the concentration camp of Al-Badr force along with my FF friends and found ourselves ankle-deep in thick human blood. One can easily imagine the extent of torture enacted upon unarmed innocent human-beings. These unfortunate souls could never return to their parents.
We shall attain success when we are able to give the highest punishment to the rest of war criminals and their kingpins. We alsosaw the daredevil criminality of Jamaat-e-Islami in 2013 and early 2015, which left our citizens’ lives frightfully insecure. We should keep in our minds that all Jamaat and Shibir followers are recidivists. Compared to other rotten political leaders, each and every Jamaati and Shibir kingpins are hawks and criminals.
The killing of a large number of people indiscriminately by the Jamaati and ICS gangsters in 1971 still haunts us like a spectre. Their act of inflicting a great wound has not freed us from illness or injury even after 49 years because of the high degree of their offences.Firm and ruthless action is needed against the rest of the war criminals. Indeed, these men of terror have struck. The government must strike back harder. There are times when democracy needs to be saved through pitiless action against those who perpetrate violence and killing in the name of democracy or religion. Just think of the precedent these culprits set and the terrible consequences that might follow unless and until these criminals’ acts are nipped in the bud.
The need for cutting-off the flow of money to terrorist organisations like Jamaat and Shibir is now very imperative. Money is the facilitator of their terrorism. The would be Parliament must enact robust laws targeting to stop inflow of this money. These criminals are moneyed-people. Poor people will be lured into terrorist groups with funding under the cloak of religion.Jamaat and their accomplices and counsels, both at home and abroad, always make faulty arguments and conceal the truth of their role in 1971 and after. When the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche said, “The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments,” I am in total agreement in the context of JI and their various wings.
There are no words to describe our outrage at the tales of horror and genocide of our people in 1971. These tales are a testament to the harrowing experiences of the family members of victims. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” We can’t remain silent on this for it matters most to us. We must say, “We have not come here to weep but to demand death by hanging.”
All their activities, even in today’s time, are a serious threat to security. There is a pressing demand for outlawing the criminal organisationsJamaat-e-Islami and Shibir. But we strongly believe that only banning them would not suffice to stop militancy and their killing-sprees. Law-enforcement agencies must descend on them with brutal force. Arrest them immediately. As the saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words.” They should not be spared from the hangman’s noose. Jamaat-e-Islami and its people do not like the truth to be told about them. Whenever the truth is told, they riot, kill, burn, destroy, threaten, and intimidate people without mercy. They look like Muslims but in fact, they are anti-Islamists, anti-Muslims, and the bitter enemies of humanity. They are thieves, liars, mass killers, looters, and rapists. They committed these heinous crimes during our liberation war using the name of Islam – our holy religion.
Some political analysts believe that some dreadful spy agencies of abroad in support of their governments and their local buddies are also combat-ready with nefarious plots in the field for a change of the present regime under any pretext. Hence, it is grossly offensive to decency or morality to the core spirit on which Bangladesh was founded in a blood-bath in 1971.
The government should take a hard look at this. But it has to be swift, it has to be real. The government should not depress us. During their heydays, these inhuman beings ruled the roost. Ancient Greek playwright Sophocles said, “All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil.” These griffins have never expressed any remorse nor repaired the evil deeds they committed.
Only six war criminals were hanged for their cold-blooded savagery unleashed upon the Bengalis during the Liberation War in 1971. We want capital punishment for all the rest of war criminals.
Let us not forget our people’s supreme sacrifice. Long live Bangladesh. Down with the war criminals and their buddies! In closing, I state emphatically certain inspired words: “Friends, Bangladesh’s countrymen, lend us your ears; we come to bury the war criminals and their mango-twigs, not to praise them.”
-The End –
The writer is an independent political observer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh who writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs.
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