Remembering 29 March 1971
I was a sixteen year-old teenager in 1971, and 27 March was my birthday. Two days later on 29 March the Pakistani Army gruesomely murdered more than three hundred innocent Bengalis in front of my own eyes. I used to live in the Lalkhan Bazaar area of Chittagong along with my parents, three brothers and two sisters. The Pakistani Army entered Chittagong on the morning of that day and stormed the nearby Chittagong Police Lines. They took over the place by overcoming the resistance put up by the brave Bengali policemen who all laid down their lives after exhausting their insufficient ammunition, struggling to keep at bay a combat army fully equipped with automatic guns and heavy artillery. Lalkhan Bazaar was a neighborhood inhabited by both Bengalis and non-Bengalis. The Bengalis, of course, had all overwhelmingly voted for the Awami League in the 1970 general elections and were expecting the handing over of power to Bangabandhu. On 26 March 1971, Moslemuddin Ahmed, who was a young Awami League leader at that time, met those of us who already knew about the killings in Dhaka in the evening of 25 March, and confirmed that Bangabandhu had declared the independence of Bangladesh. All of us Bengalis in the area were shocked at the brutal killings in Dhaka after General Yahya Khan had declared "Operation Searchlight" following his aborted meetings with Bangabandhu and other Aawmi League leaders. News spread fast, and we got ready for the consequence; the military intended to take over the whole of Bangladesh and kill as many people as they could to establish their illegal occupation of Bangladesh. Radio Pakistan, which until the killings started in Dhaka was in control of Bengali loyalists, was regularly broadcasting news about the futile dialogues between Bangabandhu and Yahya. From the evening of March 25, however, the military took control of the radio station in Dhaka which left many of us unaware of the exact happenings in the capital. Those of our neighbours who had telephones found it difficult to contact friends and relatives in Dhaka, but nobody had any doubts that the ultimate betrayal had taken place and the Bengali nation was being subjected to genocide comparable only to the holocaust. In the early afternoon of 29 March a Pakistani military convoy screeched to a halt close to the Lalkhan Bazaar intersection. The troops searched the neighborhood and picked up men, both old and young, Bengali and Bihari, and lined them up in front of what is now the 'Highway Plaza'. From among the three to four hundred men, a Bihari convinced an officer of the army that he belonged to the Urdu-speaking community and supported Pakistan. Finally, the officer allowed all Biharis to leave the spot after which the remaining, more than 200 Bengalis, were sprayed down with bullets from automatic guns. I along with my younger brother, Golam Hasan Chowdhury who now collects books on the war of liberation, saw the killing taking place from the nearby Batali hills. We could see the uniformed men carrying the dead bodies and throwing them in a pile in front of a small temple that now lies hidden behind the Highway Plaza. I was stupefied by what had happened and ran home; I was sweating and struggling to explain the incident to my parents. Atop all the Bengali houses in my alley, the black flag and the new Bangladesh flag were hoisted which made us obvious targets. To make things more dangerous, my father who was a close friend of the late Zahoor Ahmed Chowdhury had earlier in the month carried back home a telescopic rifle that he thought would be useful to keep at bay the non-Bengalis if they attacked us at any time. My father quickly hid the rifle under a pile of books on my reading table and asked all of us, brothers and sisters, to stay together in my room which could not be seen from the living room. My mother brought out her prayer mat and sat on the floor of the living room reciting the Quran. After the initial killings, the military men marched back to the main Lalkhan Bazar street and brutally murdered some more people including the 18-year old Kazi Sadeque Hasan who was a brilliant chess player and had beaten the Pakistani chess champion sometimes in 1970. Later, the military entered the alley where we lived through another entrance that was near what is now the Chittagong University Club. They continued their frenzy and entered as many houses as possible killing the Bengali inmates. Perhaps they were tired or probably they had spilt enough Bengali blood for which they retreated without going into a few houses including ours. According to my mother, a miracle had saved us from certain death. In the evening my father, the late Abdul Wahad Chowdhury, was desperate to get rid of the gun which he tried hard to dismantle, but all his efforts went in vain. Finally he feigned illness: He put on a lungi under which he strapped the gun; I and my brother agreed to accompany him to our destination, the Batali Hills, from where we planned to throw away the weapon into the thick forest. As we stepped out of the house, a non-Bengali, surprised to see that we were still alive, rudely asked my father as to where he was going at that hour of the night. My father acted as if he was terribly ill with diaorrhea and was going to see a doctor. The man was suspicious but he let us go and we hurriedly climbed the hill and threw away the rifle in the thick forest. From that moment onwards, till 16 December, all of us were trapped in our own land, which the Pakistanis forcefully wanted to retain even if it required decimation of the entire Bengali nation. The author is Professor of English at University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh.
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