1971
I was astonished to read the recent reports in The Daily Star regarding the statements by leaders of the Jamaat that there were no anti-liberation collaborators of the Pakistan Army during the Liberation War of 1971. The Daily Star has rightly pointed out that there is enough written evidence to the contrary. As a young man, in 1971, I was in charge of the administration of Oxfam's Refugee Relief Programme in the refugee camps in India where we covered the needs of about 5 lakh people in camps all round the border area from southern Tripura to near Dum Dum airport. In respect to the recent statements by leaders of the Jamaat, two incidents remain vividly etched in my memory. One day in July 1971, I was at the Benapol/Bongaon border crossing where our medical teams were providing all refugees with cholera vaccine, first aid, food and water as they streamed across the border into India. We noticed one family carrying a dead man. We asked why they had not organised the burial earlier. We were told that, "Father was killed by a Razakar, who had been a friend of his and neighbour of our family for many years. We were so shocked that we decided to bring him to India where we hope he can be buried when we are in a more peaceful frame of mind." On another occasion I was visiting one of the camps in Barasat, W. Bengal, and came across a man who had a bayonet wound which had become septic. With high fever he was in a delirious state and kept repeating that it was not an Army person who had attacked him but a Bengali Razakar. Soon after the Victory Day 1971, I was in Bangladesh to attempt to assess what Oxfam might do to assist in the rehabilitation phase. I was taken to places in Dhaka where brutal killings had taken place, such as Rayer Bazar and Jalladkhana in Mirpur. I was also present in Bangladesh when on January 24, 1972, an order was issued to try those who had collaborated with the Pakistan Army. I remember having animated discussions with excited Bangladeshis about what was going to happen and talking about the Nuremberg trials which took place after the Second World War in Germany. I know that there are many Bangladeshis who would have welcomed some sort of a Peace Commission when the Jamaat leaders could have apologised and sought forgiveness, but now with these brazen denials from their side, a lot of old wounds have been re-opened. I, too, have been affected and for the last three nights I have had nightmares remembering the evidence of brutality I witnessed so many years ago.
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