How Madaripur withstood the occupation
From Ranajit Roy, MADARIPUR (BANGLADESH), JAN. 1-(Delayed in transmission) On December 29 a large crowd cheered a parade here of about 200 Bangladesh Mukti Senas, some in Khaki uniform with arms and others in mufti and unarmed. Steeled in battles with the Pakistani occupation forces and armed Razakars the Mukti Bahini is a well-knit confident group today and is deservedly showered with praises by a people proud of the achievements of its sons.
While the parade was on, the middle-aged Secretary of the Sub-divisional Awami League, Mr. Abdul Mannan, told me : “Madaripur was known for its revolutionaries who had fought with arms for freedom from the British. We of the present generation have not merely lived up to this reputation but improved upon it. It was our Mukti Senas who defeated on the battlefield the Pakistani occupation troops in this subdivision.”
The group of 200 who participated in the parade was part of a guerilla force of about 600 that had operated in the sub-division. The guerilla chief was Captain Shaukat Hussain, who hails from Naria, a few miles from Madaripur town and who was a co-accused of Sheik Mujibur Rahman in the Agartala Conspiracy Case. Among others who distinguished themselves in the armed fight were Mr. Shahjahan Khan and Mr. Khalilur Rahman, both college students.
The Prize captured by the guerillas were two Majors, Hamid Khattak and Sayyid, and 31 other ranks of the Pakistani Army. They took many Razakar prisoners too. All of them were handed over to the Indian Army when it marched into Madaripur town which had been liberated by the guerillas. 17. The parade was attended by invitation by Major Shinde and Major Kapur who, representing the Indian Army, which the people invariably describe as the Mitra Bahini had arrived from Faridpur. They left the town soon after the parade was over. There is not a single Indian soldier stationed in Madaripur. Witnessing the parade, Major Shinde said these were excellent materials to become soldiers.
Even children had joined the guerilla band and undertaken various dangerous missions. When tea was served after the parade, a shy boy not yet ten, came up wielding a sten-gun. “My name is Mohammad Imran,” he said. “I was in class IV of Pangaea School when the Pakistanis came. Under the command of Iskander Ali I fought for three months as a guerilla. I fired at the enemy and threw grenades into bunkers. No, I did not run for safety after an operation, I crawled to safety.” The words “guerilla”, “grenade”, “bunker”, and “crawl” were used by the boy himself. I was told of another boy, aged 12, who was shot when he was about to throw his 20th grenade into a Pakistani bunker.
Madaripur town is an important jute and wholesale trading center, although it has somewhat suffered in commercial importance because of a shift in the course of the Arialkhan river which was its lifeline. It was a key communication point for the Pakistanis. A fine metalled road, constructed after to join Barisal with Faridpur, passes by it. An equally good feeder road connects Madaripur town with this highway.
The occupation troops reached the town on April 24, a month after the Army crackdown began in Dacca. Their arrival was preceded by strafing by the Pakistani Air Force on April 22. The two-storeyed building of a wealthy person. Awami League supporters and the main office of the Mukti Fauj in a part of a cinema house were among the selected targets. The wife of the Awami League supporter was hit in the leg by a bullet.
Panic spread and thousands of people, especially Hindus, started leaving the town for their village homes which, they then thought, would be spared by the Pakistanis. On April 24, a senior officer of the occupation army came here leading a fairly large force and yet up what was termed a Peace Committee manned mainly by members of the Jamaat-e-islami and the Pakistani Democratic Party. Looting, which had started even before the troops came, continued and killings and destruction of houses began. With its intensity changing from time to time, the terror went on till the Pakistanis were thrown out by the guerilla.
During the month preceding the arrival of the occupation troops, the town was under the control of the Awami League. Policemen and the personnel of all other administrative departments had joined the non-cooperation movement started by Sheik Mujibur Rahman on March 1. The Bangladesh flag flew from every house and shop. The flag was replaced hurriedly by the Pakistani flag when the occupation Army arrived. The Pakistani standard was pulled down and burnt and the Bangladesh flag was hoisted again in Madaripur on December 11, five days before the formal surrender of the enemy in Dacca.
The first houses to be attacked by the Pakistanis in Madaripur were those of Mr. Asmat Ali Khan and Mr. Phani Majumdar, both of whom were elected MPAs in 1970. Mr. Khan’s house was partly destroyed while Mr. Majumdar’s was razed to the ground and the plot used to grow radish and mustard for the occupation forces.
Mr. Majumdar is now a Minister of the Bangladesh Government. He and Mr. Khan are the principal Awami League leaders in the Madaripur subdivision. General Yahya had “negatived” their election and had got Mr. Mohiuddin Khondkar “elected unopposed” in his place. Khondkar is in the Madaripur jail now, having been put there by the Mukti Senas on December 11. This was an act of mercy for if he were caught by the people he would in all probability have been lynched for the cirmes he himself committed and helped the troops to commit.
Destruction of these two houses was, however, a small beginning. The troops, who did not forget to loot even the treasury and their stooges indulged in an orgy of murder, rape, loot and destruction which is unlikely ever to be erased from the memory of the people. Hindus as a community sought to be exterminated or made paupers. For the Muslims, the occupation troops and their collaborators followed a selective principle. They chose prominent Awami Leaguers and students and Government officials who had remained loyal to the Sheikh for killing and destruction of their property.
There are not many readily visible signs of destruction in Madaripur town proper. After being looted, the shops were distributed among supporters of the military regime. One of the two cinemas, which is owned by a Hindu, was taken over by. a Muslim. With the defeat of the Pakistanis these interlopers disappeared. The vacant business premises are awaiting the return of their lawful owners.
Charmugria in the municipal area of Madaripur was the main center of the subdivision’s jute and wholesale trade. Hindu establishments in this locality were treated in the same manner as those in the town proper. The Mukti Bahini, as a measure against the collaborators, burnt five big jute godowns. The sub-division’s richest merchant, Rahman Howladar, who owns the town’s only jute mill and was a collaborator, has been put under house arrest by the Bahini.
Some of the Hindu traders, who went into hiding among villagers or fled to India as refugees, have returned. Their problem is to set themselves up in business again. Not only have their shops been looted and safes rifled, the houses of most of them in the rural areas of the municipality had been destroyed.
The municipal area comprises the villages of Kulpaddi and Dara Khola at the eastern end and Khagdi, Ghatmaji, and Pyarpur at the other end. These were inhabited by rich Hindu merchants and had a large number of big strong brick buildings. Not one of these houses was spared by the Pakistanis. Some structures are still standing but also doors and windows and in some cases even wooden beams have been taken away.
Although Muslims had come very fast in the world of commerce in Bangladesh since partition, a substantial portion of the sub-division’s trade was in the hands of the Hindus. They have been totally ruined. Angaria and Palong among other market centers in the interior suffered equally badly.
Almost every village in this large and densely populated subdivision had destructive visits by Pakistani troops and Razakars. The troops made Rahman Howladar’s jute mill premises in Madaripur their headquarters for the sub-division. An estimated 1,500 to 2,000 troops were stationed there.
Their responsibility was to contain the Mukti Bahini and to exterminate the Hindus and the freedom fighters From Madaripur the troops fanned out by road and river into the villages from time to time.
They burnt markets, such as the one at Sindiaghat and villages such as Sarmangal, 15 miles from Madaripur on the Barisal-Faridpur Road. The only reason was that the guerillas had made their life miserable in these areas. On either side of the last mile of the road from Madaripur to the ferry crossing at Telerhat, all houses were burnt. These were all houses of Muslim farmers. The jute mill at Madaripur, closed at the moment, is described by the people as the town’s main “slaughter house”. No assessment has yet been made nor apparently a precise estimate is possible of the number killed.
Temples, whether public or private, received special attention and were desecrated without exception. The images were broken and thrown out, and whatever could be removed from the temples was taken away. Many local Muslims took part in the loot. In fact, at the early stages very large numbers of them were seized by a passion for loot. The following instance would show how far this craze went. When Madaripur town was strafed from the air and Hindus were preparing to flee, a Muslim lawyer headed a group which raided the house of a Hindu lawyer and removed furniture and other household effects and even some of the corrugated iron sheets serving as the walls of the house. Part of this property has been recovered by the Mukti Senas.
At the same time, it is a heart-warning fact that thousands of the Hindus escaped the Pak bullet and were able to save the honor of their womenfolk because of the help they received from the Muslims.
Today, when Hindus return from camps in India or from their hiding places in Bangladesh and try to set themselves up in their work again they will have substantial capital in the form of overwhelming goodwill and desire on the part of the local Muslims to help them.
The Bangladesh Government is of course there to render them assistance in very possible way. It should however, be apparent that rehabilitation of such a vast number of the uprooted will not be easy nor can the work be completed overnight.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 02.01.1972