Villages Razed to the Ground
At Hasnabad I discovered Hindu migrants who had fled from the Kushtia district alleging that the army swept through their villages burning the houses of Hindus.
Others said that they had escaped to India after local Muslim zealots, encouraged by non-Bengali Muslims, had persecuted them during the past few weeks. A few claimed that Pakistan army troops had given them a week to leave the country.
These people are simple peasants, too unsophisticated to conduct propaganda stories. One laborer from Kushtia told me that from a hiding place in the fields he and other villagers saw troops burning down all their houses.
Others, possessing nothing but the clothes on their backs, said the army had combed the district of Jessore and had asked local non-Bengalis to point out houses of Hindus and members of the Awami League. Entire villages had been razed to the ground, they claimed.
Peter Hazelhurst
Reference: The Times, June 5, 1971.