20th century in Bangladesh

"Green land of East Pakistan will be painted red."

"Indians see the war as a moral triumph too, a victory for democracy and human rights. As the leading Indian scholar and analyst Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote, “India’s 1971 armed intervention in East Pakistan—undertaken for a mixture of reasons—is widely and fairly regarded as one of the world’s most successful cases of humanitarian intervention against genocide. Indeed, India in effect applied what we would now call the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) principle, and applied it well.”"

"And the students at the university Asleep at night quite peacefully The soldiers came and shot them in their beds And terror took the dorm awakening shrieks of dread And silent frozen forms and pillows drenched in red Bangladesh, Bangladesh Bangladesh, Bangladesh When the sun sinks in the west Die a million people of the Bangladesh"

"200,000, 300,000 or possibly 400,000 women (three sets of statistics have been variously quoted) were raped. Eighty percent of the raped women were Moslems, reflecting the population of Bangladesh, but Hindu and Christian women were not exempt. ... Hit-and-run rape of large numbers of Bengali women was brutally simple in terms of logistics as the Pakistani regulars swept through and occupied the tiny, populous land ...Rape in Bangladesh had hardly been restricted to beauty... Girls of eight and grandmothers of seventy-five had been sexually assaulted ... Pakistani soldiers had not only violated Bengali women on the spot; they abducted tens of hundreds and held them by force in their military barracks for nightly use.... Some women may have been raped as many as eighty times in a night"

"Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities. Our government has failed to take forceful measures to protect its citizens while at the same time bending over backwards to placate the West Pak[istan] dominated government and to lessen any deservedly negative international public relations impact against them. Our government has evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy, (...) But we have chosen not to intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the Awami conflict, in which unfortunately the overworked term genocide is applicable, is purely an internal matter of a sovereign state. Private Americans have expressed disgust. We, as professional civil servants, express our dissent with current policy and fervently hope that our true and lasting interests here can be defined and our policies redirected."

"There were thousands of people standing out in the open here all night in the rain. Women were with babies in their arms. They could not lie down because the water came up to their knees in places. There was not enough shelter and in the morning there were always many sick and dying of pneumonia. We could not get out serious cholera cases to the hospital. And there was no one to take away the dead. They just lay around on the ground or in the water. High pressure syringes have speeded vaccination and reduced the cholera threat, but camp health officials have already counted about 500 dead and an estimated 35,000 have been stricken by the convulsive vomiting and diarrhea that accompany the diseases. Now officials fear that pneumonia, diphtheria and tuberculosis will also begin to take a toll among the weakened refugees."

"Millions of fathers in rain Millions of mothers in pain Millions of brothers in woe Millions of sisters nowhere to go Millions of daughters walk in the mud Millions of children wash in the flood A Million girls vomit & groan Millions of families hopeless alone Millions of souls nineteen seventy one homeless on Jessore road under grey sun A million are dead, the million who can Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan"

"'Bangla Desh, Bangla Desh Where so many people are dying fast And it sure looks like a mess I've never seen such distress"

"You see infants with their skin hanging loosely in folds from their tiny bones — lacking the strength even to lift their hands. You see children with legs and feet swollen with oedema and malnutrition, limp in the arms of their mothers. You see babies going blind for lack of vitamins, or covered with sores that will not heal. You see in the eyes of their parents the despair of ever having their children well again. And, most difficult of all, you see the corpse of the child who died just the night before.50"

"The story of East Bengal will surely be written as one of the greatest nightmares of modern times."

"[It is] almost entirely a matter of genocide."

"Am deeply shocked at massacre by Pakistani military in East Pakistan, appalled at possibility these atrocities are being committed with American equipment, and greatly concerned at United States vulnerability to damaging allegations of associations with reign of military terror."

"“I know of no word in the English language other than massacre which better describes the wanton slaughter of thousands of defenseless men, women and children.”"

"Field reports to the U.S. Government, countless eye-witness journalistic accounts, reports of International agencies such as World Bank and additional information available to the subcommittee document the reign of terror which grips East Bengal (East Pakistan). Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked "H". All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad."

"The very first Hindu grievance is that Hindus are being killed: in Pakistan and Bangladesh, in Kashmir, during bomb attacks... The Hindu death toll in post-Independence riots in East Bengal already outnumbers the Muslim death toll in Hindu-Muslim clashes in the whole of South Asia by far. ... All these riot data are, moreover, dwarfed by the East Bengal genocide of 1971. The first Bangladesh Government estimated the number of people killed by the Pakistanis... at three million. (...) Moreover, Western as well as Indian observers notices that the prime target group were Hindus."

"The impression that there exists a firm resolve to deny the Hindus even their martyrs is strengthened when we consider cases of mass-slaughter of Hindus, esp. the East Bengal genocide of 1971, of which the death toll was estimated by the first Bangladesh government at 3 million. Cautious researchers estimate the death toll at "one to three million" and list "Hindus" first among the targeted groups. "One to three" million is exactly the range in which the death toll of the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields is estimated, but there is just no comparison between the degree to which the Killing Fields entered the collective consciousness .. and that of the East Bengali genocide. And even those who are aware that one of the biggest mass murders of the last half century took place in East Bengal, rarely realize its anti-Hindu character... The best-kept secret of communalism-watching is that vastly more Hindus than Muslims have been killed... The anti-Hindu character of the 1971 massacres is systematically obscured in publications by the Bangladesh Government... as well as by Indian secularists. In the absence of proper research into the exact magnitude of the 1971 massacres, it is perhaps safest provisionally to settle for a cautious estimate of half a million or so Hindus killed. This would still mean that the victims of Hindu-Muslim violence in South Asia since the Partition massacres can be divided asymmetrically in well over 90% Hindus and substantially less than 10% Muslims. Contrary to a widespread impression, the typical victim of Hindu-Muslim violence is a Hindu... Indeed, to readers of the general press, it should come as a surprise: the best-kept secret about South Asia's religious conflict (not mentioned by even one recent non-Hindu author in the copious literature on the Hindu-Muslim conflict) is that the vast majority of victims consists of Hindus. Moreover, the fact that no accurate count is available, is highly significant in itself: the problem in arriving at accurate estimates is that the governments of Pakistan , India and Bangladesh (and, I am afraid, not only they) discourage serious research into the Hindu death toll in order not to foster anti-Muslim feelings... The net result is that the victimization of Hindus remains unknown."

""Genocide" means the intentional attempt to destroy an ethnic community, or by extension any community constituted by bonds of kinship, of common religion or ideology, of common socio-economic position, or of common race. The pure form is the complete extermination of every man, woman and child of the group... Hindus suffered such attempted extermination in East Bengal in 1971, when the Pakistani Army killed 1 to 3 million people, with Hindus as their most wanted target. This fact is strictly ignored in most writing about Hindu-Muslim relations, in spite (or rather because) of its serious implication that even the lowest estimate of the Hindu death toll in 1971 makes Hindus by far the most numerous victims of Hindu-Muslim violence in the post-colonial period. It is significant that no serious count or religion-wise breakdown of the death toll has been attempted: the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi ruling classes all agree that this would feed Hindu grievances against Muslims.... While India-watchers wax indignant about communal riots in India killing up to 20,000 people since 1948, allegedly in a proportion of three Muslims to one Hindu, the best-kept secret of the post-Independence Hindu-Muslim conflict is that in the subcontinent as a whole, the overwhelming majority of the victims have been Hindus. Even apart from the 1971 genocide, "ordinary" pogroms in East Pakistan in 1950 alone killed more Hindus than the total number of riot victims in India since 1948."

"Nandan Vyas has argued convincingly that the number of Hindu victims in the 1971 genocide was approximately 2.4 million, or about 80%. In comparing the population figures for 1961 and 1971, and taking the observed natural growth rhythm into account, Vyas finds that the Hindu population has remained stable at 9.5 million when it should have increased to nearly 13 million (13.23 million if the same growth rhythm were assumed for Hindus as for Muslims). Of the missing 3.5 million people (if not more), 1.1 million can be explained: it is the number of Hindu refugees settled in India prior to the genocide. The Hindu refugees at the time of the genocide, about 8 million, all went back after the ordeal, partly because the Indian government forced them to it, partly because the new state of Bangladesh was conceived as a secular state; the trickle of Hindu refugees into India only resumed in 1974, when the first steps towards Islamization of the polity were taken. This leaves 2.4 million missing Hindus to be explained. Taking into account a number of Hindu children born to refugees in India rather than in Bangladesh, and a possible settlement of 1971 refugees in India, it is fair to estimate the disappeared Hindus at about 2 million."

"The victims of the Pakistani repression in East Bengal in 1971 (of whom the big majority were Hindus, while the Bengali Muslims too were killed for anti-Hindu reasons, viz. for being "half-Hindu renegades"), like those of the Sultanate and Moghul regimes, have never been properly counted; careerwise, it is suicidal for a scholar to calculate the magnitude of Islam's crimes against humanity. The figure of 3 million is probably too high, but as it was given by a Muslim secularist (Bangladesh founder Mujibur Rahman), and as the secularists themselves have thrown their full weight against a proper study of the magnitude of Islamic massacres of Hindus, they cannot fault us for provisionally sticking to it."

"On the borders of what was to become East Pakistan, Hindu-Muslim violence in 1947 was far smaller in scale. What happened there was that after a relatively peaceful transition to independence, the Partition process of religious cleansing took place anyway but drawn out over decades. During this "prolonged Partition", there has been a constant trickle of Hindu refugees from East Bengal to India, which became a flood in times of crisis. The biggest crisis was of course the Bangladesh war of 1971, when the Pakistani army and its Bengali and immigrant-Bihari collaborators hunted down Hindus along with Muslim Bengali nationalists. The official death toll as claimed by the Bangladeshi government was 3 million; foreign observers settle for 1.5 million. All disinterested observers agree that Hindus were the first and largest among the victim groups. As for the Muslim victims, they were not killed by Hindus but by Pakistanis and their Jamaat-i-Islami collaborators who killed them for not being Muslim enough."

"Kill three million of them, and the rest will eat out of our hands."

"I wouldn't put out a statement praising it, but we're not going to condemn it either."

"To make you cry I’ll tell you about the twelve young impure men I saw executed at Dacca at the end of the Bangladesh war. They executed them on the field of Dacca stadium, with bayonet blows to the torso or abdomen, in the presence of twenty thousand faithful who applauded in the name of God from the bleachers. They thundered "Allah akbar, Allah akbar." Yes, I know: the ancient Romans, those ancient Romans of whom my culture is so proud, entertained themselves in the Coliseum by watching the deaths of Christians fed to the lions. I know, I know: in every country of Europe the Christians, those Christians whose contribution to the History of Thought I recognize despite my atheism, entertained themselves by watching the burning of heretics. But a lot of time has passed since then, we have become a little more civilized, and even the sons of Allah ought to have figured out by now that certain things are just not done. After the twelve impure young men they killed a little boy who had thrown himself at the executioners to save his brother who had been condemned to death. They smashed his head with their combat boots. And if you don’t believe it, well, reread my report or the reports of the French and German journalists who, horrified as I was, were there with me. Or better: look at the photographs that one of them took. Anyway this isn’t even what I want to underline. It’s that, at the conclusion of the slaughter, the twenty thousand faithful (many of whom were women) left the bleachers and went down on the field. Not as a disorganized mob, no. In an orderly manner, with solemnity. They slowly formed a line and, again in the name of God, walked over the cadavers. All the while thundering Allah–akbar, Allah–akbar. They destroyed them like the Twin Towers of New York. They reduced them to a bleeding carpet of smashed bones."

"I covered the war and witnessed first the population's joyous welcome of the Indian soldiers as liberators .. Later I toured the country by road to see the Pakistani legacy first hand. In town after town there was an execution area where people had been killed by bayonet, bullet and bludgeon. In some towns, executions were held on a daily basis. This was a month after the war's end (i.e. January 1972), ... human bones were still scattered along many roadsides. Blood stained clothing and tufts of human hair clung to the brush at these killing grounds. Children too young to understand were playing grotesque games with skulls. Other reminders were the yellow "H"s the Pakistanis had painted on the homes of Hindus, particular targets of the Muslim army."

"Midnight, March 25, 1971: past the University, which was being shelled, the buddha led troops to Sheikh Mujib's lair. Students and lecturers came running out of hostels; they were greeted by bullets, and Merchurichrome stained the lawns . . . And while we drove through the city streets, Shaheed looked out of windows and saw things that weren't-couldn't-have-been-true: soldiers entering women's hostels without knocking; women dragged into the street, were also entered, and again nobody troubled to knock . . . When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy . . . dog-soldiers strain at the leash, and then, released, leap joyously to their work. O woltliound chases of undesirables! O prolific seizings of professors and poets! O unfortunate shot-while-resisting arrests of Awami Leaguers and fashion correspondents! Dogs of war cry havoc in the city . . . Farooq Shaheed Ayooba take turns at vomiting as their nostrils are assailed by the stench of burning slums . . . no undesirable is safe tonight; no hiding place impregnable. Bloodhounds track the fleeing enemies of national unity; wolfhounds, not to be outdone, sink fierce teeth into their prey . . ."

"[T]he bloody massacre in Bangladesh caused Allende to be forgotten, the din of war in the Sinai Desert drowned out the groans of Bangladesh, . . . and so on, and on and on, until everyone has completely forgotten everything."

"For six days as I traveled with the officers of the 9th Division headquarters at Comilla I witnessed at close quarters the extent of the killing. I saw Hindus, hunted from village to village and door to door, shot offhand after a cursory “short-arm inspection” showed they were uncircumcised. I have heard the screams of men bludgeoned to death in the compound of the Circuit House (civil administrative headquarters) in Comilla. I have seen truck-loads of other human targets and those who had the humanity to try to help them hauled off “for disposal” under the cover of darkness and curfew. I have witnessed the brutality of “kill and burn missions” as the army units after clearing out the rebels pursued the pogrom in the towns and the villages. I have seen whole villages devastated by “punitive action.”"

"The consulate emphasized how Hindus were targeted. One of Blood’s senior staffers privately noted “evidence of selective singling out of Hindu professors for elimination, burning of Hindu settlements including 24 square block areas on edges of Old Dacca and village built around temple.… Also attack night of March 26 on Hindu dormitory at Dacca University resulting in at least 25 deaths.” Although Pakistani forces had concentrated on Awami League activists, “Hindus seem [to] bear brunt of general reign of terror.”"

"Desaix Myers remembers, "We were aware the Hindu markets had been attacked. The villages that we visited were Hindu. We were aware that Hindus specifically were being attacked." In a letter at the time, he wrote, "The Army continues to check, lifting lungis [a kind of sarong worn by Bengalis], checking circumcision, demanding recitation of Muslim prayers. Hindus flee or are shot." He recalls that on one trip out of Dacca, "I was convinced I saw people wearing pieces of cloth identifying themselves as Hindus." Butcher says, "You heard stories of men having to pull down their lungis. If they were circumcised, they were let go. If they were not, they were killed. It was singling out the Hindus for especially bad treatment, burning Hindu villages, it was like a pogrom. It was ridding the province of these people.""

"The Nixon administration had ample evidence not just of the scale of the massacres, but also of their ethnic targeting of the Hindu minority—what Blood had condemned as genocide. This was common knowledge throughout the Nixon administration. Kissinger once told the president himself, "Another stupid mistake he [Yahya] made was to expel so many Hindus from East Pakistan. It gave the Indians a great cause" for war. Kissinger, in a memorandum drafted by Saunders, alerted Nixon to the difficulty of getting Hindu refugees to return. The undersecretary of state said to Nixon, "The Hindu population has suffered strong persecution, and many have fled the country." Kissinger was repeatedly alerted about this genocide. Harold Saunders informed him about reports that the Pakistan army was "deliberately seeking out Hindus and killing them," while a senior State Department official notified him that Pakistan's policy was "getting rid of the Hindus." In a Situation Room meeting, another State Department official plainly told Kissinger, "Eighty percent of the refugees are Hindus." In the same meeting, the CIA director doubted the prospects of refugees returning to East Pakistan, no matter what Yahya said to them: "The way the Pakistanis have been beating up on the Hindus, the refugees would have to be convinced they wouldn’t be shot in the head.""

"Trying to blunt the impact of these terrible stories, Pakistan allowed in some foreign correspondents. Sydney Schanberg of the New York Times, who had been expelled from Dacca in March, jumped at the chance. He remembers the Pakistan army’s contempt for Bengalis: “Even the officers in charge of these units would say, ‘You can’t trust these people, they’re low, they lie.’ ” The officers gave “no denials that they had just killed them.” He recalls, “You’d see places where they had marked little wooden houses as Hindus.” Survivors told him that the army would “come through yelling, ‘Are there any Hindus there?’ When they found out there were, they would kill them.” He concludes, “It was a genocide”—perhaps even a more clear case than Cambodia."

"In the New York Times, Schanberg reported, "The Pakistani Army has painted big yellow 'H's' on the Hindu shops still standing in this town." Emphasizing the targeting of Hindus, he described "the hate and terror and fear" throughout the "conquered province." Back in Dacca at last, Schanberg found the city "half-deserted," with fresh loads of troops arriving daily from West Pakistan at the airport. Terrified merchants had taken down signs in the Bengali language and put up new ones in English, because they did not know Urdu. He wrote that foreign diplomats estimated that the army had killed at least two hundred thousand Bengalis."

"Kennedy declared, “Nothing is more clear, or easily documented, than the systematic campaign of terror—and its genocidal consequences—launched by the Pakistan army on the night of March 25th.” Invoking the Holocaust, he said that Hindus were being specifically targeted, “systematically slaughtered, and, in some places, painted with yellow patches marked ‘H.’ ” He blamed the Nixon administration for much of this: “America’s heavy support of Islamabad is nothing short of complicity in the human and political tragedy of East Bengal.”"

"The CIA had a blunt explanation for this "incredible" migration: "many if not most of the Hindus fled for fear of their lives." Lieutenant General Tikka Khan, Yahya's military governor, evidently thought he could quickly frighten the Bengalis into submission. The Pakistan army, the CIA noted, seemed to have singled out Hindus as targets. Although the CIA refrained from crying genocide, it did insist this was an ethnic campaign, with 80 percent—or possibly even 90 percent— of the refugees being Hindus. So far, out of eight million refugees, over six million were Hindus, and many more might follow—ending perhaps only when East Pakistan had no more Hindus left. Yahya's recent efforts to curtail such attacks had been of little use in a "virulent atmosphere" where loyalists got used to persecuting the Hindu minority... As a respected U.S. development official reported, the Pakistan army, driven by anti-Hindu ideology, was clearing East Pakistan of Hindus. Even Major General Rao Farman Ali Khan, the senior military man ruling East Pakistan, agreed with this U.S. official’s assessment that some 80 percent of the Hindus had left East Pakistan. Off the record, the Pakistani general admitted there were roughly six million refugees, and that another million and a half would eventually flee into India—roughly the number of Hindus still remaining in East Pakistan."

"At least ten thousand civilians were butchered in the first three days. The eventual civilian death toll has never been placed at less than half a million and has been put as high as three million. Since almost all Hindu citizens were at risk by definition from Pakistani military chauvinism (not that Pakistan’s Muslim coreligionists were spared), a vast movement of millions of refugees—perhaps as many as ten million—began to cross the Indian frontier. To summarize, then: first, the direct negation of a democratic election; second, the unleashing of a genocidal policy; third, the creation of a very dangerous international crisis."

"March 25th officially marks the beginning of the genocide in Bangladesh. The brutality unleashed by the Pakistani army and the targeting of Bengali Hindus simply because of their religion must be strongly condemned as religious freedom is one of the most sacred of human rights. It has been 50 years since the genocide in Bangladesh, and the survivors and their descendants are still fighting for recognition; they are still fighting for an apology from Pakistan, as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh formerly asked her Pakistani counterpart as recently as January of 2021; and they are still fighting for justice and for closure."

"In any case where large numbers were massacred and it can be shown that on the particular occasion the intent was to kill Bengalis indiscriminately as such, then a crime of genocide would be established. There would seem to be a prima facie case to show that this was the intention on some occasions, as for example during the indiscriminate killing of civilians in the poorer quarters of Dacca during the 'crack-down'. ... As far as the other three groups are concerned, namely members of the Awami League, students and Hindus, only Hindus would seem to fall within the definition of ' a national, ethnical, racial or religious group '. There is overwhelming evidence that Hindus were slaughtered and their houses and villages destroyed simply because they were Hindus. The oft repeated phrase ' Hindus are enemies of the state ' as a justification for the killing does not gainsay the intent to commit genocide; rather does it confirm the intention. The Nazis regarded the Jews as enemies of the state and killed them as such. In our view there is a strong prima facie case that the crime of genocide was committed against the group comprising the Hindu population of East Bengal."

"Whenever they found Hindus, the Pakistanis would capture them, kick them with their boots, attack them with bayonets, gouge out their eyes and then break their backs. If they survived this sort of brutality, they were then killed. Sudhamoy had seen many Muslims being beaten up but their lives would usually be spared but this never happened with the Hindus. During the war of independence,the corpses of many Hindus and Muslims who fought for their country were piled into a well in the local sweepers’ colony. In a poignant moment, even as the country rejoiced in its new-found independence, the relatives of people he had known like Majid, Rahim and Idris had come and cried over the bones of both Hindus and Muslims that were stacked in the well of Mathurpatti. Their tears had fallen even more copiously when they had realized that they had no way of distinguishing between the bones of the Majids and the Anils."

"The genocide and gendercidal atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers. These "willing executioners" were fueled by an abiding anti-Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority. "Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. Said General Niazi, "It was a low lying land of low lying people." The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that [should] best be exterminated. As to the Moslem Bengalis, they were to live only on the sufferance of the soldiers: any infraction, any suspicion cast on them, any need for reprisal, could mean their death. And the soldiers were free to kill at will. The journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Pakistani captain as telling him, "We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one." This is the arrogance of Power."

"In 1971, the self-appointed president of Pakistan and commander-in-chief of the army General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and his top generals prepared a careful and systematic military, economic, and political operation against East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). They planned to murder that country’s Bengali intellectual, cultural, and political elite. They planned to indiscriminately murder hundreds of thousands of its Hindus and drive the rest into India. And they planned to destroy its economic base to insure that it would be subordinate to West Pakistan for at least a generation to come. This despicable and cutthroat plan was outright genocide. After a well-organized military buildup in East Pakistan, the military launched its campaign. Within 267 days it killed about 1,500,000 people, turned another 10 million into refugees who fled to India, provoked a war with India, incited a countergenocide of 150,000 non-Bengalis, and lost East Pakistan."

"The plan of the top political and military leadership of the state of Pakistan was to arrest Sheikh Mujib for later disposition, kill other leaders and organizers of the Awami League, arrest or kill Bengalis in the army stationed in East Pakistan, kill or arrest all the top intellectuals and Bengali civil servants working there, kill most of the university students (who provided the rationale, energy, and organization for the pro-independence demonstrations), destroy the old shanty towns and city blocks in Dacca and kill their inhabitants (a home of mass support for the Awami League), and throughout East Pakistan kill a significant number of the 10 million Hindus, forcing the rest to flee across the border into India. All this would be launched in Dacca by surprise."

"That first night, army units also attacked the University of Dacca. Four American-built M-2 tanks shelled student dormitories at close range, killing many men and women students.13 Those students who survived until the morning were forced to dig mass graves for the dead and then themselves were lined up and shot."

"But the most horrible of all was the army’s attack the following day on the poor shanty-town area of Dacca’s old city. Over 1 million people lived there, along a jungle of winding narrow streets and alleys, and they were strong supporters of Sheikh Mujib. For twelve hours soldiers systematically razed one area of the old city or another. Gasoline was poured around blocks and ignited. People trying to escape the flames were shot down. Streetside squatter colonies were especially vulnerable and were destroyed by tanks. As the massacre proceeded, whole families were killed together. One can easily picture the horror and panic of these poor people as they jumped from windows or ran out of buildings and down streets and alleys to escape the flames, bullets, and tanks.21 It was no accident that this was mainly a Hindu section — it was part of the plan to kill large numbers of these “infidels” and to terrorize the rest into fleeing the province."

"Overall, in the first days of slaughter in Dacca, possibly 7,000, to 10,000 civilians,22 or 15,000 overall,23 maybe even as many as 50,000,24 were killed. If we just take the lower estimate of 10,000 as the number burned to death or shot in cold blood in Dacca, this alone would make it an incredible, premeditated act of mass murder. But within months the death toll throughout the province would be over 100 times this number. This, done by the authorities of an internationally recognized government."

"The atrocities committed in Dacca were more than equaled elsewhere. In particular, in what became province-wide acts of genocide,25 Hindus were sought out and killed on the spot. As a matter of course, soldiers would check males for the obligated circumcision among Moslems. If circumcised, they might live; if not, sure death. Women and children were no less victims, but this the army would self-righteously deny."

"According to the post-independence report of the Bangladesh Government Inquiry Committee, nearly one-third of all workers were murdered.29 Since there were nearly 2 million workers,30 this would mean the premeditated murder of around 666,000 in just nine months."

"As the soldiers advanced and consolidated control over one district or town after another, atrocities were repeated ad nauseam. Bengalis were spared no torture, no way in which their lives could not be stolen from them. Some accounts seem simply the stuff of propaganda but come from reputable sources or eyewitnesses. In a letter to The Guardian of London, for example, the Reverends John Hastings and John Clapham cite instances of babies tossed in the air and caught on bayonets, women bayoneted vertically, children sliced up like meat, and the heads of others smashed.31 A correspondent of The Daily Mirror reported from the province that soldiers had buried two boys “in mud that came up past their noses and the crows did the rest.”"

"The army even operated its own death camps... There were no trials, no interrogation. The processing of the arrivals was simple. Seven or eight of them would be roped together, led to the river’s edge, and in the light of an arc lamp forced to wade out into knee deep water. And then, from above them on a pier jutting out into the water alongside, executioners would shoot down on the starkly lighted forms. Group upon group would be so executed."

"But most of all, the human death toll over only 267 days was incredible. Just to give for five out of the eighteen districts some incomplete statistics published in Bangladesh newspapers or by an Inquiry Committee, the Pakistani army killed 100,000 Bengalis in Dacca, 150,000 in Khulna, 75,000 in Jessore, 95,000 in Comilla, and 100,000 in Chittagong. For eighteen districts the total is 1,247,000 killed. This was an incomplete count, and to this day no one really knows the final toll. Some estimates of the democide are much lower — one is of 300,000 dead61 — but most range from 1 million62 to 3 million. In a David Frost television interview, Sheikh Mujib himself claimed that 3 million had been killed. Based on these and other estimates, it is likely that 300,000 to 3,000,000 men, women, and children were murdered, most probably the 1,500,000 ..."

"Hindus were sought out and killed on the spot. As a matter of course, soldiers would check males for the obligated circumcision among Muslims. If circumcised, they might live; if not, sure death."

"[T]he Pakistani army and allied paramilitary groups killed about one out of every sixty-one people in Pakistan overall; one out of every twenty-five Bengalis, Hindus, and others in East Pakistan. If the rate of killing for all of Pakistan is annualized over the years the Yahya martial law regime was in power (March 1969 to December 1971), then this one regime was more lethal than that of the Soviet Union, China under the communists, or Japan under the military (even through World War II). That is, Yahya Kahn, a name still largely unknown outside of Pakistan and Bangladesh, killed in cold blood proportionally per year more people than Lenin, Stalin, or Mao Tse-tung. Of course, he must bow to Hitler and Pol Pot."

"The man installed as Bangladesh’s president by the young officers who had slain Rahman was Khondakar Mustaque, generally identified as the leader of the right-wing element within the Awami League. He was at pains to say that the coup had come to him as a complete surprise, and that the young majors who had led it—Major Farooq, Major Rashid and four others, at the head of a detachment numbering just three hundred men—had “acted on their own.” He added that he had never met the mutinous officers before.... The cover story (one might term it the coincidence version) leaks at every joint and comes apart at the most cursory inspection."

"Only a reopened congressional inquiry with subpoena power could determine whether there was any direct connection, apart from the self-evident ones of consistent statecraft attested by recurring reliable testimony, between the secret genocidal diplomacy of 1971 and the secret destabilizing diplomacy of 1975. The task of disproving such a connection, meanwhile, would appear to rest on those who believe that everything is an accident."

"The kidnapping of young women and the treatment to which they were subjected constitute a sordid chapter in the history of human relations. Poor innocent girls, young married women, sometimes with infants in their arms, were forcibly taken away to distant places. They were molested and raped, passed on from man to man. bartered and sold like cheap chattel. Some- times it was impossible to trace their whereabouts. When representatives of the Indian Dominion went to recover them they were concealed and denied access to their relations. Large numbers of them, when recovered, were brought to a refugee camp at Kunjah. Conditions in this camp beggar description. A young woman of 21, describing her experiences, said: “I stayed in the camp for two months. Camp life was very miserable. We were given chappatis full of lime and were constantly molested by the soldiers, Maulvis used to come and preach to us against the Indian Dominion...They told us that we would go to heaven sf we lived with them They said that it was foolish on our part to go to India... A party of young women who were brought to the camp said “We reached the camp on the fifteenth day It was nothing less than hell The flour was mixed with lime and drinking water smelt so foul that it made us ill to drink it... Sick children were given wrong medicines and some of them became blind and died as the result of the poisons given to them. The military guards brought their friends at night and molested the young girls in the camp. They pinched our breasts and made indecent jokes , those who were pregnant were shot down... A young girl of 14 or 15 sleeping by my side was dragged away and raped. When she resisted they kicked her Her face in the morning looked as if it had been scratched by a knife”"

"Usually, rape and sexual assault were invariably followed by abduction of the victimised women. These abducted women typically became domestic servants and sex slaves. Many abducted women were sold into prostitution and some, in very rare instances, were married to their abductors and later claimed to be leading happy and respectable lives."

"Armed Pathans, operating in bands, were perhaps the worst offenders in West Punjab, especially in the districts of the Rawalpindi division (where they were concentrated), for it was they who systematically preyed upon the refugee trains and convoys, carrying off women to be sold for as little as Rs10 or 20 to Muslim men. Non-Muslim women from Kashmir also were offered for sale in West Punjab, ending up as 'slave girls' in factories. A report from Sargodha district claimed,The Pathans brought a very large number of abducted women and children from the Kashmir front and they had been selling these like cattle and chattel. There were cases in which a woman had been sold thrice or four times. The Pathans had made this a regular trade."

"They shot everyone who couldn't recite the kalima - the Arabic-language Muslim declaration of faith. Many non-Muslim women were enslaved, while many others jumped in the river to escape capture."..."They had returned with war booty," he says. "Some had brought cattle, some horses. Most of them had brought arms, and many brought women. One Afridi tribesman walked back with two women in tow. They wept incessantly and just wouldn't stop.""

"The Punjabi Sikh and Hindu girls and Kashmiri women are proverbially beautiful, so they were in great demand in the Muslim countries of Africa and the Middle East. They were sold there by the barbarian Muslim kidnappers for very high prices. These ill fated women were confined in their purchasers' harems and bound to accept concubinage"

"In this nefarious design, the Pakistan Government made an internal secret agreement called “Zen and Zar “with the Pathan mercenaries according to which if Mirpur city was captured, the captured women would be taken by the Pathans and the immovable property would be the share of Pakistan Government."

"No one could predict how long this sold-off woman would remain there. These poor women were housed by the government in the Kunja camp as there was fighting going on in Kashmir. The army handed them over to us when they were useless...All 600 had been used by the Pakistani army...Pakistan's attitude was that it should be thankful that it had managed to recover so many women. Naturally, they would not admit that they had any hand in the situation the women found themselves in."

"One Muslim member of the Legislative Assembly was said to have five hundred girls in his possession in West Punjab, while an abducted Muslim girl from a well-known family was reported to be with the Maharaja of Patiala. In West Punjab police officials, members of the Muslim League and landed magnates were involved."

"The following strategy, the Report continues, was used wherever the mobs attacked: First of all minorities were disarmed with the help of local police and by giving assurances by oaths on holy Quran of peaceful intentions. After this had been done, the helpless and unarmed minorities were attacked. On their resistance having collapsed, lock breakers and looters came into action with their transport corps of mules, donkeys and camels. Then came the ‘Mujahadins’ with tins of petrol and kerosene oil and set fire to the looted shops and houses. Then there were maulvies with barbers to convert people who somehow or other escaped slaughter and rape. The barbers shaved the hair and beards and circumcised the victims. Maulvis recited kalamas and performed forcible marriage ceremonies. After this came the looters, including women and children."

"The trouble for the non-Muslims in general, and for the women in particular, started in March, 1947. Whatever may be the causes of the Rawalpindi and Multan riots, it is admitted that these were of terrific nature Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, aftcr visiting district Rawalpindi reported to the British Government in England, "The whole of the Hindu-Sikh part is an absolute wreck, as though it has been subjected to an air raid."2 Several Hindu and Sikh villages were wiped out. Justice Teja Singh, a member of the Punjab Boundary Commission, stated before the Commission that during the Rawalpindi riots, "A large number of people were forcibly converted, children were kidnapped, and young women abducted and openly raped."3 Though a separate number of female casualities is not available, the official figure of deaths in the district of Rawalpindi was 2,263 which was considered far below the actual numbcr.4 Thc womcn were subjected to maximum humiliation and torture. Their agony can be judged by the fact that a number of women jumped into wells to save their honour. It is as unbelievable today as it was at that time. But fortunately Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru visited the village on 14th March, 1947, and he was told about thc incidents of ladies jumping into wells. His staff photographer took photographs of the bottom of the well with the help of a flashlight. These photographs showed the decomposed limbs of the bodies. One copy of a photograph was given to me by late Sant Gulab Singh in whose land the well existed. He told me that his wife was the first to jump into the well. The photograph has been published in my book Shahidian."

"The assailants did not spare even little children. It was naked beastliness performing a devil’s dance. Children would be snatched from the hands of their parents, tossed on spears and swords, and sometimes thrown alive into the fire. Other cruelties equally horrible were perpetrated. Women’s breasts, noses and arms would he lopped off. Sticks and pieces of iron would be thrust into their private parts. Sometimes the bellies of pregnant women were ripped open and the unformed life in the womb thrown out. In some places processions of naked Hindu and Sikh women are also reported to have been taken out by the Muslims mobs. (81)... At Nara, in the tehsil of Kahuta, Sikh women and children were burnt alive, and the women were tortured in ways most devilishly ingenious and sadistic, which it is not possible for any decent human being to describe.... All this was done in village after village after the Muslims had given assurances of safety on the Koran to Hindus. Hindu women were molested and abducted. Altogether 50 villages in this tehsil were looted with arson, murder and abduction of women. Ears, noses and breasts of women were cut off, and they were raped in the presence of their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons."

"There is a marked difference in the behaviour of Muslims and Sikhs towards women and children captured during this fight. While Muslims everywhere dishonoured, abducted or murdered Hindu and Sikh women and children, Sikhs never resorted to anything of which they might have reason to be ashamed. On the first day of attack, several Muslims got killed by an infuriated Sikh crowd in a locality which was at the junction of a Muslim and non-Muslim zone, not very far from the centre of the Sikh influence. More than one hundred Muslim women and children, whose menfolk had either been killed or had run away for safety, fell into the hands of the Sikhs. Sikhs kept them safe and fed them for the two or three days that the fighting lasted and all communications in the town were cut off, and later sent them under escort to the City Police Station, These women acknowledged the chivalry and courtesy of the treatment of the Sikhs towards them. (156)"

"When everybody had got into the train and as the engine was whistling to indicate that the train was going to start, a huge crowd of Muslims came from the side of the Mandi and factories. They were armed with rifles, chhuras, axes, barchas and other lethal weapons... The women-folk were not butchered, but taken out and sorted. The elderly women were later butchered while the younger ones were distributed... The children were also similarly murdered. All the valuables on the persons of the women were removed and taken away by the mob... During these visits I also saw a large number of Hindu women in the houses of the Muslim inhabitants of Kamoke. All of them complained that they were being very badly used by their abductors."

"“On 4-10-47, a small caravan of about fifteen non-Muslims tried to cross the bridge Ravi from Pakistan to this side. They were entrapped by the Muslim Military picket on the other side of the bridge. That caravan included four women. The male members of the caravan were murdered during the night. Our Military picket on this side of the bridge heard shrieks and cries of the victims. The Gurkha Jamadar in charge of the picket saw the women with Military (Muslim). They kept those women in their tents during the night and the military picket on our side heard their shrieks too during the night as if they were being raped. Later on those women never crossed the bridge on this side."

"“Girls abducted from Mirpur side are sold in Jhelum city at Rs. 10 or 20 each. The local police refuses to interfere on the ground that the girls were not removed from the Punjab and also they express their helplessness because of the attitude of the armed Pathans possessing these girls. I am bringing this to the notice of the West Punjab Government but I am afraid nothing would come out of it and in our helplessness all these girls shall have to stand hardships for all their lives and suffer misery.” According to the information received most of the girls abducted from Jammu and Kashmir States and some of the girls abducted from Gujranwala, Jhelum, Mianwali, Jhang and Dera Ghazi Khan districts are taken to the North-west Frontier Province and from there to the tribal territory. At Mansera and some other places (North-West Frontier) there are regular camps where Hindu girls are being sold."

"A British Officer of the M. E. O. of West Punjab reported (September, 1947) that at a place near Sheikhupura he was called to rescue a Hindu girl, who had been carried away by Muslim National Guards. He found the girl in a hut with 4 of her captors, who had raped and cut off her breasts and were now frying them. He shot the lot."

"The Chittagong Hill Tracts Conflict in Bangladesh is a good example of the type of conflict that tends to go unmediated."

"Bangladesh had attracted the attention of international media and human rights NGOs due to the Chittagong Hill Tracts conflict..."

"The most significant separatist movement of ethnic groups [in Bangladesh] has been that of the Chittagong Hill Tracts which signed a peace accord ."

"There is no state today, certainly not in India, to protect Hindu interest in the international arena, to raise voice for the Hindus .... In December 1992, no less than 600 Hindu temples were destroyed in Bangladesh, thousands of Hindu homes were burnt down, hundreds of Hindu women were paraded naked on the streets of Bhola town, a number of Hindus were killed, Hindu shops were looted, Hindu deities were desecrated, Hindu girls were dishonoured. But the Government of India remained silent. In Pakistan, 300 temples were destroyed. In Lahore a Minister of Pakistan personally supervised the pulling down of a temple with the help of bulldozers, and several Hindus were murdered. But the Government of India remained silent. No matter how much tyranny, how much injustice is heaped on Hindus anywhere in the world, the State of India is not bothered - this is the essence of Secularism in India."

"Muslims attacked and burnt down Hindu temples and shops across Bangladesh and disrupted an India-Bangladesh cricket match following the destruction of the Babri Masjid in India by Hindu fundamentalists. About 5,000 young men with rods and bamboo sticks tried to storm Dhaka National Stadium, but they were beaten back by police firing tear gas and rubber bullets. At least 10 people have died, many Hindu women have been raped, and hundreds of Hindu homes and temples have been destroyed."

"Taslima Nasrin, a physician, poet, novelist, and journalist, is an outspoken feminist from Bangladesh and the author of many books. Lajia (Shame) is a documentary novel about the plight of a Hindu family in Benes persecuted by Muslim fundamentalists during an outbreak of anti-~ in 1992. On December 6, 1992, Hind extremists demolished the Babri Masjid, a 16th-century mosque in Ayodha, India. The incident set off weeks of mob violence in India during which more than 1,200 people were killed. In Bangladesh, Muslims terrorized Hindus and ransacked and burned Hindu temples, shops, and homes in retaliation. Hindus are a minority in Bangladesh, which has an Islamic constitution. The novel traces the events of 13 days in the life of a fictional family, the Duttas—Sudhamoy Dutta, a physician, his wife Kironmoyee and their grown children Suranjan and Maya—in the aftermath of the razing of the Babri mosque. It also reflects Hindu complaints of persistent violation of their rights. Many Hindu friends of the Dutta family crossed the border into India to settle with relatives, particularly after a 1990 wave of anti:"

"Bhola district had a majority of Hindu population. Till 1992, practically no Hindu family had migrated to India. The Hindu were prosperous paddy farmers who had learnt to have a good crop from the marshy farmland. Nearly 50,000 Hindu families were the victims of genocide in this district The Muslim mobs, mostly composed of Jammat-e-Islam goondas and members of the Awami League Party violently looted, damaged and set fire to the houses and commercial centers and temples in the entire district towns and villages Practically everything was either looted or destroyed. The condition of women and children was pitiable as they was no Shelter, no food and no clothes for days. Three hundred young girls, many minor among them, were raped, even gang raped, in front of their parents and families. In one village alone more then 200 women were abducted and have never been recovered. The onslaught in the Bhola district had been prepared far in advance as the land and properties of the Hindus were coveted by Muslims. Political parties were waiting for an opportune time and pretext. After this holocaust nearly 65 percent of the Hindu families in Bhola district migrated to India."

"It is disgraceful that the Hindus in my country were hunted by the Muslims after the destruction of the Babri Masjid. All of us who love Bangladesh should feel ashamed that such a terrible thing ‘could happen in our beautiful country. The riots that took place in 1992 in Bangladesh are the responsibility of us all, and we are all to blame."

"Lajja was published in February 1993 in Bangladesh and sold over 60,000 copies before it was banned by the government five months later—their excuse was that it was disturbing the communal peace. In September that year a fatwa was issued against me by a fundamentalist organization and a reward was offered for my death, There have been marches on the streets of Dhaka by communalists clamouring for my life. But none of these things have shaken my determination to continue the battle against religious persecution, genocide and communalism."

"They walked away from the damage together. Suranjan asked, ‘Which other places have they torched?” “Chittagong’s temples at Tulsidhaam, Panchanandhaam and Kaibolyadhaam were broken to pieces. All the temples in Malipara, Samshan mandir, Korbanigunj, Kalibari, Chatteswari, Bishnu mandir, Hajari lane and Fakirpara were set ablaze. Ironically, there were processions at the same time pleading for communal harmony’ Suranjan sighed deeply. Kaiser pushed back his untidy hair and said, ‘It wasn’t only temples yesterday. They had even set fire to the fishermen’s colony in Majhirghat. Atleast fifty homes were totally destroyed’ ‘What else?’ Suranjan asked, suddenly indifferent to everything. “They raided the Madhav mandir and Durga mandir in Jaidebpur. At Sherpur, the Annapurna mandir at the Krishi Centre and the Kali mandir at the Sherighat Ashram were completely destroyed. In Faridpur, the temples in the Ramakrishna Mission were looted. The guru and his students were seriously injured.’ “And? Suranjan continued to be unconcerned. “At Narshindi, the temples and houses at Chalakchor and Monohordir were destroyed. In Narayangunj, the temple at the Morapara Bazaar in the Rupgunj station was demolished. At Comilla, the old Abhaya Ashram was burnt. At Noakhali also all Kinds of atrocities were perpetrated.” “Like what?’ “The Adhor Chand Ashramat the Sudharam police station and seven Hindu homes have been destroyed. All the Hindu homes in Gangapur were first looted and then set ablaze. The Sivakali temple at Shonapur and the gymnasium at Binodpur were destroyed. The Kali mandir at Choumuhini, Durgabari mandir at Durgapur and the temples at Qutabpur and Gopalpur were razed to the ground. Dr P. K. Singha’s medicine factory, Akhanda Ashram, and the temples in the Choyani area were all demolished. InChoumuhuni, Babupur, Tetuia, Mehdipur, Rajgunj Bazaar, Tongirpar, Kazirhaat, Rasulpur, Jameendarhaat and Porabari ten temples and eighteen Hindu homes were looted and set on fire. A shop, a car and even alady were setalight. Of the seventeen homes in Bhabordi, thirteen were torched and all of them looted and the ladies were tortured. Biplab Bhowmick was stabbed. Yesterday all the houses and temples in Birahimpur were damaged. The Jagannath mandir, three shops in the Charhazaari village, as well as clubs were looted and plundered. Two houses in the Charparbaati village, one house in Daasherhaat, two temples at Charkukri and Muchhapur and the Jaikali temple were burned. All the people living in Sirajpur were beaten up and all the homes were at first looted and later set ablaze’"

"Dhakeshwari mandir, Siddheswari Kali mandir, Ramakrishna Mission, Mahaprakash Math, Narinda Gouriya Math, Bholagiri Ashram have all been stoned, looted and plundered. ‘Swamibagh Ashram has also been looted. Twenty-five homes near Shoni’s gym have been burnt down. The Shoni mandir and the Durga mandir have both been destroyed and burnt. Narinda’s Rishipara and the Dayagunj Jelepara have not been spared either. Farmgate, Paltan, the Nawabpur Maran Chand sweetshop and the Deshbandhu sweetshop at Tikatuli have also been demolished and set ablaze. The temple at Thathari Bazaar has also been torched."

"Tapas Pal, who had been patiently waiting for his turn, now said, ‘I have just got news from Cox's Bazaar, that the temple at Sebakhola has been destroyed. There was another at Chitamandir which has suffered the same fate. The Central Kali mandir at the Jalalabad Idgaon Bazaar, the Durga mandir at Hindupara, the Manasha mandir and Hari mandir at Machuapara as well as the Club House at Machuapara have been burnt to cinders by the Jamaatis. The Durga mandir at Islamabad, the Boalkhali Durga mandir, the Adaitya Chintahari math, the chief priest's home at the math, and at least five more temples have been set ablaze. The Hari mandir at Boalkhali has been looted. Eight temples at Choufaldandi as well as six homes and two shops were destroyed. Ina Hindu locality hundred and sixty-five homes were completely demolished. In the shopping centre, five Hindu shops were looted and Hindus are being beaten up and tortured at sight. They are setting fire to the granaries in a number of Hindu homes. The Bhairavbari temple at Ukhia has been completely destroyed as well. The Teknaf Kalibari, along with the purohit’s home, has been burnt down. The mandir at Sarbang has also been demolished. At Maheshkhali, three temples and eleven Hindu homes were set on fire. Four schools for Gita recitals have been burnt down. At the Kalarama Market, the Kali mandir and Hari mandir have both been set on fire, The Kali mandir at Qutabdia Borghop Bazaar, and five others have also been set on fire. Four craftsmens’ shops have been destroyed at the market. At the Ali Akbar Dale, fifty fishermen’s homes were looted and burnt to the ground. At Qutabdia, three children sustained burns. At Ramur Idgah, the community Kali mandir and the Jelepara Hari mandir were destroyed and later burnt down. Many homes at Fatehkhanrkhul were set on fire... .’ Suranjan cut in abruptly and said, ‘Oh for God’s sake, stop. Instead, why don’t you sing a song?’ “Sing!,’ Everyone was taken aback. How could anyone sing in these circumstances? Today was not a normal day. Houses, temples and shops were being burnt in the city, and Suranjan was asking for a song!"

"In order to maintain peace and harmony, all the parties in Dhaka were spontaneously organizing processions. But all this was a facade. Behind the front, it was a different story. In Golokpur, thirty Hindu women were raped. Chanchali, Sandhya, Moni . . . Nikunja Dutta had died. Bhagavati, an old lady, had been so terrified that she had died of a heart attack. In Golokpur incidents of daylight rape were reported. Even women who had taken refuge in Muslim homes were being raped."

"Fourteen hundred maunds of betel nuts belonging to Nantu Haldar were burnt to ashes at Das’ Haat Bazaar, The police, magistrate and DC were mute spectators to the destruction of temples at Bhola city."

"The jewellery of temples was openly looted. A Hindu washermens’ colony was burnt to cinders."

"At Manikgunj, they destroyed the Lakshmi temple, the community Shiv temple, the goldsmith lanes of Dashara and Kalikhala and the big beverage and cigarette godowns of Gadadhar Pal ‘Three truckloads of people raided the police stations at Twara, Baniajuri, Pukuria, Uthli, Mahadebpur, Joka and Shivalaya. ‘Three kilometres from the city, Hindu homes were looted and burnt in the Betila village. ‘The century old Naat mandir of Betila was attacked."

"Jeevan Saha’s home at Garpara was torched; three cowsheds ‘were burnt to ashes; hundreds of mounds of paddy were lost in the flames. Hindu shops at Terosree Bazaar under Ghior police station, and Hindu houses at Gangdubi, Baniajuri and Senpara were burnt down. At Senpara, a Hindu woman was raped as well."

"The Kali temple of Pirozepur, the Debarchana committee Kali mandir, the Manasha mandir, the Sheetala mandir, the Shiv mandir, the Narayan mandir, the Pirozepur Madanmohon Bigraha mandir, the Kali temple of Roykathi, the Krishnanagar Rai Rasaraj Seva Ashram, the Dumurtala Shreeguru Sangha ashram and mandir, the Kali temple at Suresh Saha’s home in Dukheri Dumuriala, the Manasha mandir at Naren Saha’s house in Dumurtala, the Manasha mandir at the ancestral home of Ramesh Saha, the community Kali mandir at Dumurtala, the temples at the homes of Sucharan Mondal, Gouranga Haldar, Harendra Nath Saha, Narendra Nath Saha, the Kali temple beside the Dumurtala high school, the Ranipur Panch Devi mandir, the community mandir of Hularhaat and Kartick Das’ furniture shop, the Kali mandir, the Kalakhali Sanatan Ashram, the Jujkhola Gour Govinda Seva Ashram, the Harisabha Sanatan Dharma mandir, the Kali mandir at the home of Ranjit Seal, the Jujkhola community Puja centre, the community Durga mandir near the Gabtola school, the temple in Bipin Haldar’s house at Krishnanagar, the community Kali mandir at Namazpur, the temple and math at Kalikathi Biswas’ home, the Lairi Kali mandir, the community temple of Inderhaat under Swarupkathi police station, the Durga mandir at Kanai Biswas’ homein Inderhaat, Nakul Saha’s cinema hall, the Durga mandir at Amal Guha’s home, the temple at Hemanta Seal’s house and the Kali mandir at Jadav Das’ house at Mathbaria police station were all set ablaze, The Shiv mandir at Mistripara in Syedpur was also destroyed. The community temple at Rathdanga village of Narail district, the Ghona community mandir, the Kudulia community crematorium, Nikhil Chandra Dey’s family mandir, Kalipada Hazra’s family temple, Shivprosad Pal’s family temple, the family temple at Dulal Chandra Chakraborty’s home in Badon village, Krishna Chandra Laskar’s family temple, the Taltala village community temple, the family temples of Baidyanath Saha, Sukumar Biswas and Pagla Biswas at Pankabila village, the community temple at Pankabila village, the Narayan Jiu mandir at Purbapara Daulatpur under Lohagara police station were all ransacked and demolished."

"Ten temples at Khulna were razed to the ground. Four or five temples along with houses were looted and plundered at Raduli in Paikpara and at Shobonadas and Baka villages. Two temples were destroyed in the Talimpur area under Rupsa police station. The Hindu homes adjacent to it were also looted."

"On the night of 8 December, three temples in the Dighlia and Senhati areas were burnt down. A group of processionists raided thirteen homes in Sahadevpur village, Feni. Twenty people were injured in the Jaipur village of Chagalnaiya At Langalboa village, Gobinda Prosad Roy's home was raided by two hundred people at the instigation of Moazzem Hussain. A person by the name of Kamal Biswas was seriously injured; it was possible he would succumb to his injuries. These tales of the continuing carnage in Bangladesh were being furnished by Birupaksha, Nayan and Debabrata. They satin front of Suranjan and chattered on but Suranjan gave no sign that he heard them. He was lying down with his eyes closed. He thought savagely—none of you know that it was not only at Bhola, Chittagong, Pirozepur, Sythet and Comilla that Hindu homes were looted; there was also a home at Tikatuli which was looted and from where a beautiful girl named Maya was stolen! Women after all were like commodities, and therefore stolen just like gold and silver."

"Gangs of Moslems, many armed with knives and clubs, attacked Hindu temples, smashed idols and set fire to hundreds of homes in response to clashes in India, witnesses said today. Angry mobs took to the streets late Tuesday on hearing news of an attempt by fundamentalist Hindus in India to take over a mosque and replace it with a temple at the holy town of Ayodhya. More than 150 people have been killed in India in fighting related to the dispute. The worst violence flared at Kaiballadham, site of the Chittagong’s largest temple. Witnesses said 2,000 people with knives and iron rods rampaged through a residential district around the temple at midnight and burned at least 300 houses. One group destroyed about 50 mud-and-straw houses inhabited by low-caste Hindus, mainly fishermen. Another group attacked a garage owned by a Hindu and damaged five vehicles."

"The independent Ittefaq newspaper said a Moslem businessman who was shot during the anti-Hindu rampage in Dhaka died in a hospital late Wednesday night. There was no immediate indication who shot him. The newspaper said about 100 people were injured in Dhaka, most of them from stabbings. Twenty-six were hospitalized. Ittefaq also reported anti-Hindu trouble in Jessore, Narail, Gaibandha, Mymensingh, Sunamganj and Sylhet in northern and western Bangladesh. It gave no details except that gangs attempted to break into temples. Bangladeshi newspapers tend to be cautious in reporting sensitive issues such as religious strife. In Chittagong, the trouble erupted Tuesday evening, several hours after Hindu fundamentalists in India stormed into a 16th century mosque they want to replace with a temple in the Hindu holy town of Ayodhya. At least 11 Chittagong temples were vandalized. About 30 percent of the 2 million people in Chittagong, the nation’s second-largest city after Dhaka, are Hindus."

"In Bangladesh, an Islamic country with a Hindu minority, newspapers reported hundreds of demonstrators were injured when anti-Hindu gangs clashed with police in Dhaka, Chittagong and Barisal. Dainik Bangla, a government-owned daily newspaper, said police used steel- tipped batons to disperse 400 Moslems who tried to break into a Hindu temple in Barisal, 75 miles south of Dhaka. At least 50 people were injured. In Dhaka,the capital, riot police armed with tear gas guns and truncheons wounded about 100 people who tried to ″vandalize and loot Hindu-owned shops and temples,″ said Ittefaq, an independent Bengali-language daily. It said nine people were hospitalized. In Chittagong, the country’s second largest city, 500 Moslems attacked a Hindu village with knives and homemade bombs Thursday night, witnesses said."

"A mob had set fire to the Dhakeshwari temple. The police had. not made the slightest attempt to stop them. The main temple where prayers were offered was burnt to ashes and the dance hall of the temple had been damaged as well."

"The Shiva temple, the guest rooms and the ancestral home of Shridham Ghosh were all razed to the ground. The main temple of the Gouriya monastery, the temple for devotional dance as well as its guest rooms were demolished. Valuables inside the temple were looted."

"The main temple inside the Madhav Gouriya monastery was destroyed."

"The Jaikali temple was smashed to smithereens."

"‘A room situated on the boundary wall of the Brahmo Samaj was blown up. Inside the Ram-Sita temple an exquisitely carved throne was totally destroyed. Needless to say, the temple's sanctum sanctorum itself was badly damaged."

"The monastery at Naya Bazaar was demolished, 50 too was the temple at Bongraam with crowbars,"

"‘At Dhamrai, the Shoni temple, a part of the gymnasium complex, was plundered."

"The homes of at least twenty-five families were incinerated by two to three hundred commianal thugs. At Lakshmi Bazaar, the walls of the Bir Bhadra temple were broken down and everything inside was destroyed."

"‘The image of the goddess Kali in Rai Bazaar was damaged ‘beyond recognition."

"‘The Bottholi temple in Thathari Bazaar was destroyed."

"The ancient Shamp mandir was partially damaged."

"Ruminating in this fashion, he lit a cigarette. His attention was drawn to a thin book lying on top of the table. He had never seen the book before. It was about the communal conflict of 1990 and he opened itand was soon engrossed in it. On 30 October 1990, at 1 a.m,, the residents of Panchanandhaam Ashram woke up to the sound of a slogan-shouting procession. The processionists broke open the front gate and breached the boundary wall, abused the ashramites, poured kerosene on a temporary shed and started a fire. One by one, all the idols were broken, including the top of the shrine over the sadhubaba’s grave, and all the religious books were burnt. The Sanskrit Language Institute was housed on the same plot as the Ashram. The crowd ransacked the book shelves, burnt the valuable books and looted whatever money they could find. On the same day, around midnight, approximately 2,500 armed people attacked the Sadarghat Kalibari with bricks, entered the main temple and broke and destroyed the idols. All the shops and hamlets alongside the Chatteswari Mayer mandir were looted and destroyed. The cremation area of Golpahar was consigned to the flames and the Kali idol (Swasan Kali) was destroyed. A news broadcast by the Voice of America on 30 October night resulted in an assault on Kaibolya Ashram, Every idol and every room in the ashram was torched; the inmates of the ashram fled to the hills. Those who failed to leave were beaten with iron rods or brutalized in other ways. The temple was damaged badly. Something similar occurred at the Haragouri temple; the idols were smashed, all the valuables looted and the religious scriptures burnt to ashes. The area around the temple was left in a shambles and the entire population of the place was rendered homeless. An armed gang attacked the Krishnagopalji temple on Chatteswari Road in the evening. Their total booty was two kilos of silver, 250 grams of gold and other precious items including the idol. The precious sculpture of the cow at the gate and the surrounding pine trees were not spared either. ias colony of Bahaddarhaat was turned into a ghost town—all Hindu houses were looted, the people of the area irrespective of sex and age were brutalized."

"Large-scale looting and arson took place in many areas of Chittagong, including the Dasbhuja Durgabari at College Road, the Baradeshwari Kali mandir of Korbanigunj, the Paramahangsa Mahatma Narsingha mandir at Chakbazaar, the Barsa Kalibari and Durga Kalibari at Uttar Chandgai, the Sidheshwari Kali mandir at Sadarghat, the Dewaneshwari Kali mandir of Dewanhaat, the Uttar Patenga Samshan Kalibari of Katghar, the Magadeshwari idol was broken and Rakhsha Kali mandir of Purva Motherbari, the Milan Parishad mandir of Mogultuli, the Durga mandir, the Shivbari and Hari mandir of ‘Tigerpass, the Sadarghat’s Raj Rajeshwari Thakurbari, the Kali mandir and Durgabari of Jalalabad, the Napitpara Swasan mandir of Kul Gaon, the Karunamoyee Kali mandir of Katalgunj, the Jaikali mandir of Chandgaon’s Nathpara, the Dayamoyee Kalibari and Magadeshwari Kali. mandir of Nazirpara, the Kalibari of Paschim Baklia, the Brahmamoyee Kalibari of Katalgunj, the Bara Bazaar Shreekrishna mandir of Paschim Baklia, the Shiv mandirs of Himangshu Das, Satindra Das, Rammohan Das and Chandicharan Das, the Krishna mandir of Monomohan Das, the Tulsidhaam mandir of Nandankanan, the Dakshin Halishahar mandir of Port Area, the Golpahar Mahasamshan and Kalibari of Panchlaish, the Jelepara Kali mandir at Aman Ali Road and the Anandamoyee Kali mandir at Medical College Road."

"Other areas that were destroyed and plundered included the Bura Kalibari of Nalua of Satkania, the community Kalibari and Durga mandir of Jagoria, the Chandimandap Magadeshwari temple of Dakshin Kanchara, the Madhyabari Kalibari of Dakshin Charti, the community Kalibari of Madhyanalua, the temple at Charti, the Rup Kalibari and Dhara mandir of Barnakpara of Dakshin Charti, the Jalakumari temple of Paschim Matiadanga, the Krishnahari temple of Badona Deputyhaat, the Durnigar Mahabodi Bihar of Bajalia, the famous Milan mandir and Krishnamandir of Boalkhali of Kodurkhil, the Jagadananda Mission of Aburdandi, the ‘community Magadeshwari mandir of Paschim Shakhpura, the Mohinibabur Ashram of central Shakhpura, the Kali mandir of Dhorla Kalaiahaat, the community Jagadhatri mandir of Kodurkhil, the Rishigraam Adhipati of Kok Dandiya, the Bigraha mandir, the Magadeshwari Dhanpota and Sebakhola of Kodurkhil’s Saswat Choudhury, the community Kalibari of Potiya, the Hari mandir and Jagannathbari of Dwijendra Das of Nolua in Satkania, the community Kalibari in Satkania’s Dakshin Charti Dakhshinpara and the Dakshin Brahmandanga’s community Kalibari."

"‘A hundred-strong communal crowd attacked the Mirzapur Jagannath Ashram (a place for meditation and study) in Hathazari subdistrict of Mirzapur at about 11 in the night. All the idols were destroyed and all the ornaments of Lord Jagannath were looted. The next morning the crowd set fire to the corrugated tin roof. The police who had been alerted to a second attack retreated in the face of the violent crowd. When a fresh complaint was lodged with the police they drew attention to their limitations and took no further action. That evening about forty to forty-five armed people attacked the unarmed villagers. They fled. The gang forcibly entered homes and temples in the area, destroyed idols and decamped with valuables."

"Armed gangs destroyed the idols at Dhairahaat Hari mandir at Chandnaish subdivision. They did the same with Jagannath’s chariot. The Matri mandir and the Radhagobinda mandir at Pathandandi village of Borokal union were destroyed. At 12 midnight, 400 men from Boalkhali destroyed all the family temples at Kodurkhil union, and demolished the homes of Himangshu Choudhury, Paresh Biswas, Bhupal Choudhury, Phanindra Choudhury and Anukul Choudhury. The ancient Rishidhaam Ashram of Banskholi subdistrict was destroyed. All the rooms were burnt down and the books were reduced to ashes."

"Fundamentalists attacked the Jagannath Ashram of Sitakunda on 31 October. Shri Shri Kali mandir of Battala, built around 200 years ago, turned into a prize target. The head of the idol was broken and its silver crown and gold ornaments were stolen. Hindus were in the majority at the Charsarat village. On 1 November, around two to three hundred people arrived and literally looted the entire village: Whatever they could not carry away, they consigned to the flames leaving behind ashes and mute, half-burnt trees. Finally, before the marauders left they warned the villagers to leave by the 10th, failing which they would face even more calamitous attacks. Goats and cattle were killed and the granary was completely burnt. About 4,000 Hindus suffered enormous losses. More than seventy-five per cent of the houses were burnt to the ground, numerous goats and cattle killed and many women raped. The estimated loss ‘was over twenty-five million takas. Approximately 200 people armed with lathis and iron rods attacked the Satbaria village temple and destroyed all the idols inside. The people in the adjacent villages came to know of the destruction and fled. Many of them took shelter in the neighbouring jungles. The invaders looted every house. The community Durgabari of Satbaria was razed to the ground. The temple and the residences of Khajuria village met with identical fate. The peasants lost everything. The raiders set Sailen Kumar's wife afire and the poor woman was critically injured. A few devotees were at prayer in the Shiva temple. When they were discovered by the hooligans they were taunted and abused; the idols in the temple were destroyed and as the mobs left they urinated on them for good measure."

"Reporters in Bangladesh said Moslems set fire to more than 25 Hindu-owned shops and smashed idols at three temples in the town of Narsinghdi, 25 miles northeast of Dhaka. No injuries were reported. ″This step is a willful desecration of an Islamic holy place and arouses the deepest resentment among Moslems all over the world,″ Ms. Bhutto said. She said it was Pakistan’s policy not to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs but added the temple was a matter ″of deepest concern for Moslems both inside and outside India.″"

"The Bengali-language newspaper, the Sangbad, said about 500 Moslems hurled stones at Hindu-owned shops on Friday in Khulna, 85 miles southwest of Dhaka. It said at least 50 people were injured. The protestors from a fundamentalist group called Council of Priests also attacked the offices of the secular Awami League Party after a rally in the town park, the independent daily said. Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan protested to India after a Hindu group laid the foundation stone Nov. 9 for the temple of god Ram at Ayodhya. The group has agreed to postpone the construction until next year. On Nov. 11, Moslem mobs angry over the planned temple damaged three Hindu temples and burned at least 25 Hindu shops in Narsinghdi in eastern Bangladesh."

"This may be my last message. From today Bangladesh is independent. I call upon the people of Bangladesh wherever you are and with whatever you have, to resist the occupation army. Our fight will go on till the last soldier of the Pakistan Occupation Army is expelled from the soil of independent Bangladesh. Final victory is ours. Joy Bangla!"

"I, Major Zia, on behalf of our Great Leader, the Supreme Commander of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, do hereby proclaim the independence of Bangla Desh and (sic) that the government headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has already been formed. It is further proclaimed that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is the sole leader of the elected representatives of 75 million people of Bangla Desh and the government headed by him is the only legitimate government of the people of the independent sovereign state of Bangla Desh, which is legally and constitutionally formed and is worthy of being recognised by all the governments of the world. I, therefore, appeal on behalf of our Great Leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to the governments of all the democratic countries of the world, especially the Big Powers and the neighbouring countries, to recognise the legal government of Bangla Desh and take effective steps to stop immediately the awful genocide that has been carried on by the army of occupation from Pakistan. To dub us, the elected representatives of the majority of the people, as secessionists, is a cruel joke and should befool none. The guiding principle of the new state will be, first, neutrality; second, peace; third, friendship to all and enmity to none. May Allah help us. Joy Bangla!"

"One common but divisive question: Who declared Bangladesh's independence? Sheikh Mujibur Rahman or Ziaur Rahman? Actually but sadly, Bangladesh is polarized over the independence declaration, which is not an academic disagreement pondering over a past event—it's a politically explosive question that determines the winners and losers of Bangladesh politics even today... The Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP), the two largest parties are locked in a jockeying for power over who declared the independence in March 1971—Awami League chief Sheikh Mujibur Rahman or Ziaur Rahman, a military officer at that time."

"I have mentioned earlier the reason for Delhi's headache regarding Bengali nationalism. They feared that with the establishment of a secular and independent Bangladesh, the wave of this nationalism would reach all Bengali-speaking regions of India, including the states of West Bengal and Tripura, and would also create cracks in the unity of the remaining undivided India...India prefers to have a weak Muslim state as its eastern neighbor—a state towards which the non-Muslim Bengalis of West Bengal or Tripura would feel no affinity or loyalty; rather, they would fear associating with Muslim nationality and Muslim majority, recalling the memories of Pakistani rule. Moreover, although this country would nominally be a Muslim state, it would be almost entirely surrounded by India and fragmented on the basis of religious national unity, making it easy to use this weak country to tilt the balance of power and influence in South Asian politics in India's favor. Additionally, India's big businesses would have the opportunity to establish a monopoly market there without hindrance. It turns out that, despite the differences and hostilities between Delhi and Islamabad regarding Bangladesh's independence, their attitudes towards a secular Bangladesh and secular Bengali nationalism are almost identical."

"The struggle this time is the struggle for our emancipation. The struggle this time is the struggle for independence. Joy Bangla!"