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PAINTING: ZAINUL ABEDIN
SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2016
On this day in 1971 n Arts & Letters Desk
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n this day in 1971, people of Dhaka woke up to the horror of one of the most brutal genocide campaigns in history. The Pakistan army, well equipped with ammunition and tanks, engaged in an orgy of killing totally unarmed, unprepared teachers, students and officials of Dhaka University along with ordinary people living around. The DU dorms, especially Jagannath Hall and Iqbal Hall (now Zahurul Haq Hall), and the teachers’ quarters were the centre of anti-Pakistan political activities. It explains why the crackdown, which later extended even to the remote village, began with the DU and the areas adjacent to it. The time from the night of March 25 to the lifting of curfew next day has found a central place in our historiography. On the 45th anniversary of our Independence Day, Arts & Letters takes a look at this bit of history through the eyes of those who had survived this attack. Accounts of what had actually happened have been compiled in many books. But
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Sahitya Prakash’s 1971: Bhoyaboho Obhiggata (1971: Dreadful Experience) and UPL’s Historicising 1971 Genocide stand out among others. The former was edited by Rashid Haider and the latter written and edited by Imtiaz Ahmed.
Chhilam” (I was at Jagannath Hall that Night), Sheel gives a vivid picture of that night. Having completely surrounded the Jagannath Hall, the Pakistani army first launched a deadly shell and arson attack on the hall. The crushing nature of the
I found Iqbal Hall demolished in many places, with the staircases covered with dark stains of blood... There was dried blood on the floor of a room Rashid’s book anthologises articles, among others, by Kaliranjan Sheel, a veteran activist of Communist Party of Bangladesh, and Selina Hossain, one of our most respected fiction writers. While Sheel shares how he had survived the killing mission, Selina writes about what she had seen on the morning of March 26 upon visiting Iqbal Hall, one of the bastions of pro-independence student leaders. In his article “Jagannath Hall-ei
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World Poetry Day
attack made it clear that the mission was to enact a holocaust, gunning down every living soul staying there. Yet, miraculously, Sheel had survived although how this was possible would continue to baffle him all his life. While the mortar shell attacks were going on, the army gutted most parts of the dormitory. Then they barged into the rooms and indiscriminately fired bullets into the hapless students. However, some students, includ-
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Arts & Letters
ing Sheel, were spared because of the darkness. But as the day broke, they hunted down all of them and asked them to carry the corpses all over the compound, and to heap them in a corner of the field. Finally, they ordered the remaining students to line up beside the stacks of corpses to complete their mission. But Sheel was too overworked to stand on his feet, so he fell on the ground right before the bullets could hit him. This was the breathtaking tale of how Sheel had cheated death. Yet, disturbing memories of that horrifying night might have taken their toll accordingly, precipitating an early death of one of the few survivors of the Jagannath Hall carnage. In her article “Those Suffocating Days”, Selina Hossain writes, “We came to Iqbal Hall by rickshaw ... On our way we saw the Babutala slums burned to the ground, nothing left except charcoals and ashes. I found Iqbal Hall demolished in many places, with the staircases covered with dark stains of blood... There was dried blood on the floor of a room and its door read, “Zafar, Chittagong.” There was dried blood on the floor and the dead body was
Spoken word poetry
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not there. One realised that the dead body was dragged out and down the corridor, the stairs. A lot of the rooms were like that.” Imtiaz Ahmed’s book not only provides a theoretical framework for better understanding the genocide, but also gives us interviews of those who had seen their loved ones get brutally killed in front of their eyes. Through interviews with family members of Statistics Department’s ANM Maniruzzaman and English’s Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta, among others, Imtiaz’s book provides accounts of how teachers were dragged out and shot. It also includes interviews of Rajkumari Roy, wife of a martyred office assistant at Jagannath Hall; and Uma Rani, a sweeper whose martyred father was a gardener at the VC’s office. At a time when perpetrators of this attack still deny their crimes against humanity, books like these, along with Bangla Academy’s voluminous Ekattorer Smrity series and UPL’s Road to Freedom series, serve as our witness to the darkest night in our history that had seen men turn into demons and the demons shoot indiscriminately at our people. l
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