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Download PDF The horrors of March 25 night return to haunt the nation as it observes the 37th Independence Day today to salute those who traded their lives for freedom.
The massacre of innocent civilians on that night in 1971 was carried off so flawlessly and on such a scale that the international media had no doubt that Bangalees’ struggle for independence had been crushed.
But proving them wrong, the valiant sons of the soils put up a great fight against the occupation forces as a formal declaration of independence came the following day.
Numerous atrocities and brutalities over the next nine months could not stifle the indomitable spirit of the freedom fighters. Their heroics steered the country towards independence.
However, it all came for a high price with at least three million people killed and more than a quarter million women raped in the course of the war.
According to Simon Dring’s report titled “Tanks Crush Revolt in Pakistan”, as many as 7,000 people were slaughtered alone on the night of March 25. Published on March 30 in The Daily Telegraph, it carries a first-hand account of the blood bath.
The report begins with a graphic description of the genocide. It reads, “In the name of ‘God and a united Pakistan,’ Dacca is today a crushed and frightened city. After 24 hours of ruthless, cold-blooded shelling by the Pakistan Army, as many as 7,000 people are dead, large areas have been levelled and East Pakistan’s fight for independence has been brutally put to an end.”
The foreign journalists’ accounts of that night reveal how desperately the then Pakistan government moved to stop the news of genocide from reaching the world community.
Dring in another report published the same day wrote, “Associated Press photographer Michel Laurent, I managed to make an extensive tour of the burning city and to see first-hand the extent of the slaughter the Government of Pakistan is trying to hide.”
Titled “Reporter Escapes Net”, it describes how he, then aged 27, eluded search parties that herded foreign correspondents out of Dhaka.
Michel Laurent, an AP photographer who too evaded the army and toured the devastated areas on the night of March 25, reported, “Thirty-five foreign correspondents were detained in the Dacca Intercontinental Hotel and only this reporter and a British correspondent evaded the Army cordon and subsequent deportation of newsmen to Bombay. Later the Army at Dacca airport frisked me and seized film and notes on Dacca.”
The report published on March 30, 1971 in The Times added, “The Government went to extreme lengths to prevent a large contingent of foreign journalists from witnessing the Army’s intervention and the subsequent violence.”
In the chapter ‘Genocide in Bangladesh’ in the “Bangladesh Documents” Simon Dring said, “…the first target as the tanks rolled into Dacca on the night of Thursday, March 25, seems to have been the students. An estimated three battalions of troops were used in the attack on Dacca-one of armoured, one of artillery and one of infantry. They started living their barracks shortly before 10 p.m. By 11, firing had broken out and the people who had started to erect makeshift barricades-overturned cars, three stumps, furniture, and concrete piping- became early casualties.”
“As the university came under attack, other columns of troops moved in on the Rajarbagh headquarters of the East Pakistan police, on the other side of the city. Tanks opened fire first, witness said; then the troops moved in and levelled the men’s sleeping quarters, firing incendiary rounds into the buildings. People living opposite did not know how many died there, but of the 1,100 police based there not many are believed to have escaped.”
Michel in the same report of The Times describes, “In two days and nights of shelling by the Pakistani Army perhaps 7,000 Pakistanis died in Dhaka alone. The Army, which attacked without warning on Thursday night with American supplied M24 tanks, artillery and infantry, destroyed large parts of the city.
At another point, the report reads, “A mass grave had been hastily covered at the Jagannath Hall and 200 students were reported killed in Iqbal Hall. About 20 bodies were still lying in the grounds and the dormitories. Troops are reported to have fired bazookas into the medical college hospital, but the casualty toll was not known.”
Louis Heren in a report titled “Political and Intellectual Leaders Being Wiped Out in War of Genocide” published on April 2, 1971 in The Times said, “…..a systematic pattern of physical and psychological destruction became apparent even during the first night of fighting on March 25. Soon after, it became clear that certain groups had been selected to be the victims of completely unrestrained brutality.”
In the report titled “in Dacca, Troops Use Artillery To Halt Revolt” and published on March 28, 1971 in New York Times, Sydney H Schanberg wrote, “There was no way of knowing how many civilians had been killed or wounded. Neither was any information available on what was happening in the rest of the province, although there had been reports before the Dacca attack of clashes between civilians and west Pakistani soldiers in the interior.
“From the hotel, which is in north Dacca, huge fires could be seen in various parts of the city, including the university area and the barracks of the East Pakistan Rifles, a paramilitary force made up of Bengalis, the predominant people of East Pakistan.
“Some fires were still burning and sporadic shooting was continuing early this morning when the thirty five foreign newsmen were expelled from Dacca.
“’My God, my God,’ said a Pakistani student watching from a hotel window, trying to keep back tears, ‘they’re killing them. They’re slaughtering them’.”
March 26th, 2008 at 7:59 am
On this historic day remember the fond memories of two of my very intimate childhood freddom fighter friends Noufel and Nasim of Faridpur who embraced martyrdom on 9th December in an encounter with retreating Pak army at Kamarkhali.Also remeber all the other freedom fighters and others who helped the liberation war to win the independence. Hope my ex colleagues could show respects to liberation war heroes in the monument that we built at Ashuganj Gas Manifold Station of GTCL. Bangladesh will never become peaceful until all war criminals are punished for their crimes.