Left parties Have Failed to Defend Tribals and Refugees Facing Polavarm Submergence!
Would the Intellegentsia Kolkata, Mahashweta Devi and Sanhati Udyog clear their satnd ?
Would Mamta Bannerjee speak out to defend the partition Victim dalit Refugees?
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Would the Intellegentsia Kolkata, Mahashweta Devi and Sanhati Udyog clear their satnd on Polavaram dam?
I am waiting!
Police lathicharge on protestors in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh has left eight people dead and several others injured on Saturday.The incident took place when police opened fire on protestors who were demanding land reforms in the district.The bloodshed could prove costly for YS Rajasekhara Reddy's government in the state.However,Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy announced a judicial probe into the police firing on communist parties' agitation seeking land for the poor.
Since May, Left parties have led the landless poor to forcibly occupy vacant lands all over the state. It culminated in a hunger-strike this week and Saturday's protest bandh in the state.
But the Left parties have failed to defend Tribals and Refugees facing Polavarm Submergence! The protest turned violent in Modugonda village in Khammam district where police opened fire to quell a stone pelting group in which six activists were killed and several others injured. coincidentally, Anti Polavarm agitation has got its epicentre in Khammam itself. But left does not care for the declining dalits and tribals. they want only political milage and want a better image after Nandigram singur episode. Nothing else!
Meanwhile, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has asked Chief Minister YSR Reddy for a report on the police firing.
The CM has transferred the district police chief and suspended the additional SP. A judicial probe has also been ordered into the incident.
''The police were overpowered and pushed around. Without provocation, they (protestors) pelted stones at the police,'' Reddy said.
Dear Palash Babu,
I have tried to understand the suject mentioned above.
It is seen that the polavaram-vijaywara canal project
is going to uproot 250 villages and about 2 lakhs of
people will become shelterless. I am very much worried
and feel agony that about twenty thousand kutcha
houses fall within the zone and it is a fact that the
owner of those houses are the people of dalit and
tribal communities. It needs agitative protest from
all corner all over India to safeguard their
displacement. Sharing your thought and endeavour to be
beside the Dandakaranya (Malkangiri in Orissa and
Bastar in Chattishgarh)refugees particularly the
namasudras who will become refugee once again.
-----Manohar Mouli Biswas
General Secretary, Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha
Manohar Biswas
651 V.I.P nagar.
Gouranga Palli.
Kolkata 700100
Tel # : (033) 23451294
Cellular : +919433390044
thanks!
Manohar Babu!
We want a initiative right from you.
Mamata slams CPI(M) government over Nandigram
Bolpur: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee today came down heavily on the Left Front government over the Nandigram issue.Addressing a rally at Nannur near here, Ms Banerjee alleged that appropriate punishment had not been meted out to the responsible for the Nandigram massacre.
'' The Left Front government is giving false assurances to the poor farmers that they would be given employment in the Tata factory. All the claims of the government about making West Bengal an industrialised and prosperous state are hollow, '' Ms Banerjee said.
She stated that the farmers would not be able to get justice unless the CPI(M) was ousted from power.
Well, Mamata Bannerjee also habitual to quote Dandakarny Refugees and Marichjhanpi Genocide! Would she speak out to defend the partition Victim dalit Refugees?
Maoist bandh hits life in Malkangiri, PTI reports.
Normal life was affected in some interior areas of Malkangiri district following a bandh call by the CPI(Maoist) in protest against alleged police repression on people, corruption and in memory of 'martyrs' killed in encounters with the police.
Mind you, Motu Tehsil has to be submerged by Polavaram and the bandh had its maximum impact in the Motu tehsil where traffic had come to a standstill and shops and business establishments closed, reports from the interiors said. The large weekly market held at Kalimela on Thursdays also had thin attendance. It was also heavily raining in the area, the reports said.
CPM, BUPC men clash in Nandigram
Statesman News Service
HALDIA, July 27: Fighting broke out in Nandigram along the Talpati canal this afternoon when CPI-M cadres and supporters of Bhumi Uched Pratirodh Committee opened fire and hurled bombs at each other. BUPC members alleged that CPI-M cadres attacked them from the other side of the canal when they were marching in a rally to the Tekhali bridge. However, nobody was injured. The protesters, too, reportedly responded with bricks and bombs. The violence was primarily concentrated in Gokulnagar, Maheshpur and Parulbari. Women protesters have threatened to gherao Nandigram police station on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the state government resumed peace process in Nandigram today. “The chief minister informed us that peace process will resume from today. All parties will be part of it. We are concerned about Nandigram. It can’t be allowed to remain a no man’s land forever”, former chief minister Mr Jyoti Basu said today in Kolkata. n SNS
Intellegentsia Bengal is posing as great sympathiser of the Peasants Uprising in Singur and Nandigram. But except Mr Sunanda Sanyal none of them was seen present during No SEZ National convention. Rashida B and Bhopal gas Tragedy victims, Arundhati ray, Medha Patekar and NBA along with mass organisations countrywide and delegates from abroad participated in this convention held on 2nd and 3rd June, 2007. Muslims and dalits participated in this convention on large scale. Afraid of Dalit Muslim United Insurrection, two arch rivals of West Bengal Geopolitics and both representing the brahminical Ruling Class met next day!
Would Mahashweta Devi who has written on Marichjhanpi Genocide so many times in her regular colum stand united those very Dandakaranya Refugees, the victims of Partitition Haolocaust as well as state sponsered Violence in Marichjhanpi who face another displacement and have to be evicted for Polavaram Dam?
I am waiting for her writeup. I appreciate her and support all the causes she fights for. But I am disappointed when I she that she reluctantly refuses to write or say anything for Dalit Refugees. I know, she does not believe in Caste and rather believes in Class struggle! This is also a classical game of Brahmin dominated Marxist Ideologues and politicians in India!
I would like to see what stand the Sanhati Udyog takes, too!
Mind you, Polavaram Dam Project has to submerge Malkan Giri in Orissa and Dantewara in Chhattishgargh. Both the governments have opposed the project. Orissa Chief minister naveen Patnike, despite his drive for urbanisation and Industrialisation and Eviction Bengali speaking resettled refugees Drive, has come out openly to defend Malkangiri perhaps because not only Bengali Refugee colonies but tribal villages also have to be wiped out if the project goes on.
Medha Patkar has centred her agitation basically in Andhra. Malkangiri and Dantewara people along Sharbari river do not know about submergence destiny! This is perhaps RTI effect. Orissa Government or Chhattishgargh Governments have not circulated any information. Thus, there is virtually no agitation in Malkangiri or Dantewara. No survey or public hearing is reported. would Medha Patkar go there?
We know Mahashweta Devi`s lifelong fight for civil and human rights of Indian tribals. A whole tribe named Koya has to be wiped out. Tribal and refugee population of three Indian states face immediate danger to their life, liberty and livlihood. Benagli Refugees have to suffer most as they have no political support. Kolakta Media has not published a single report. I am sending daily updates. They have their own hifi Network. But they are not interested.
What about the Marxists who have launched an agitation in Andhra already, but has failed to make an issue of Polavarm Project! Is it necessary to stay away from any agitation against so called development, to defend the inhuman acts of WB Government. Perhaps may be. Technically, they should come forward as Mr Naveen Patnaik also opposes the project. So does Mr Raman singh!
CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday condemned the police firing in Khammam district and said the party would stage dharnas all over the country in protest against it and press the Andhra Pradesh government to accede to their demand on land for the landless.
"I strongly condemn the police firing and attitude of the Andhra Pradesh government," Karat told reporters here.
Karat said when Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S R Reddy met him in Delhi a month ago, he had suggested resolving of the issue pertaining to demand for land for the landless through negotiations with local left leaders.
Instead, the Andhra Pradesh government has resorted to "police repression", he alleged. Casualties in the police firing is "highly unfortunate" and it`s regrettable that the situation has come to such a pass, he said.
The shutdown threw normal life out of gear in Guntur, which witnessed peaceful protests.
On the Chennai-Kolkata National Highway 5, vehicular traffic was obstructed for over an hour near Kakani village, a suburb of Guntur city.
Traffic was allowed to move after 12 noon, Sub Inspector S Ravi said.
Educational institutions, shops and financial institutions like banks remained closed in view of the shutdown.
However, attendance in government offices was normal.
SUCI demands fresh lists of abandoned CPI(M) activists in Nandigram
Kolkata: The Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) today demanded a fresh list of CPI (M) supporters, who lost their homes after the March 14 incident in Nandigram.
The CPI(M) had claimed that thousands of their party activists were still homeless since the masscare that took place at Nandigram.
However, SUCI state secretary Provash Ghosh told mediapersons that the CPI (M)'s claim was baseless.
''The ruling party should release a fresh list of their marooned party workers at Nandigram mentioning the camps they were taking shelter at,'' he said.
He said, after the Haldia Municipality poll's victory, the CPI(M) 'miscreants' had started fresh violence in Nandigram.
Veteran marxist leader Jyoti Basu yesterday said the efforts were on to resume peace talks in the troubled area but peace could not be resumed in the area if appropriate punishment were not given to those responsible for the Nandigram carnage.
Haldia in pocket, the CPM would now be tough with the Opposition in nearby Nandigram, Jyoti Basu said today.
“Efforts to restore normality in Nandigram had been suspended because of the municipal election. The process will be renewed from today,” the CPM patriarch said a day after the Trinamul Congress spurned Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s talks offer yet again.
“Nandigram can’t be allowed to run as a liberated zone for long. We have won the Haldia poll, even in the areas close to Nandigram, after so many incidents in the zone,’’ Basu said after the weekly meeting of the CPM state secretariat at the party headquarters.
He lashed out at the Opposition parties for their “opportunist alliance” in Haldia.
Tension prevails ahead of "martyr day" , a Hindustan times Report:
Tension prevails in the jungle areas of Gadchiroli, Chandrapur and Gondia districts, bordering Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh over the week-long bandh call given by the banned naxalites outfit, CPI (Maoist) to commemorate its "martyr day", beginning from July 28.
According to reports reaching Nagpur on Saturday, the naxalites have given the call ostensibly to commemorate the 35th death anniversary of their founder, Charu Majumder, who died in police custody in Kolkata on July 28, 1972. The state police are taking adequate precautions in view of the bandh and sounded a high alert in the naxalites-prone border districts.
The Maoist rebels are determined to bring these districts, particularly the interior areas, to a complete standstill during the period. They are distributed pamphlets and leaflets in this regard and appealed to villagers to ensure its success. The police recovered 23 kg explosive from two different places. The naxalites had planted explosives with a view to trigger explosions and blow up vehicles and create terror in the area.
The anti-naxalite squad in Gadchiroli was on way to patrolling Korchi area to thwart any attempt to disrupt peace when they discovered explosive plated on Bori route with the intention of blowing up passing vehicles. The police also recovered two detonators from the spot. Similarly, the patrolling party recovered 9 kg explosives near Jafrabad Hills in the district.
Talking to Hindustan Times, the additional director general of police (ADGP), anti-naxal cell, Pankaj Gupta asserted that the police were also determined to scuttle any naxalite design. “A massive police bandobast has been made in all the affected districts. Moreover, police patrolling in all the sensitive areas have also been spruced up in view of possible violence,” Gupta further informed.
Operation Munnar not wound up: Kerala CM
Thiruvananthapuram: Refuting reports that the campaign against land encroachment at Munnar was wound up, Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan on Saturday said the operation at the hill station would continue till the area was freed from land-grabbers.
"The Munnar campaign has only been suspended due to inclement weather following torrential rains and land-slips. It would be resumed in another two weeks when the weather becomes conducive for that," he said.
The impression created by the media that the Munnar operations had been called off even prompted the Supreme Court to remark that it would be 'unfortunate' if the government had left it half-way, he said.
Defending the removal of a sign board put up by Tatas in the area, he said the board was taken away as it stood on public land. After that the company itself had taken it away.
The head of the task-force carrying out the Munnar eviction drive was now under treatment. In a fortnight the same team would be back in operation or a new team would be assigned, he said.
The goal of the campaign was to save Munnar's ecosystem and natural beauty to make it a leading tourist spot. Also, part of the reclaimed land would be distributed to the landless, he said.
On the dispute over Mullapperiyar dam with Tamil Nadu, Achuthanandan said Kerala was firm on building a new dam in place of the 110-year-old structure which posed a threat to 3.5 million people living downstream.
Construction of the new dam was estimated to cost Rs 300 crore. A lion's portion of this amount would be met by the exchequer and the rest raised from the people, he said.
Achuthanandan expressed strong resentment at the Railways' plans to inaugurate the Salem Division in September.
This was against the assurance given by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad that any final decision would be taken only after consultations with Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
The Centre's unilateral decision would mean that the Railway minister was going back on his assurance under pressure from Minister of State for Railways, R Velu, he said.
Achuthanandan said a massive sanitation campaign would be launched across the state to tackle serious health threat posed by piling up of wastes.
He said he would take personal initiative with regard to the drive which would be carried out with the participation of local bodies and all sections of people.
The Legacy of the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh - Part-IX
Thu, 2007-07-26 02:31
By Rabindranath Trivedi - for Asian Tribune from Dhaka
Part-IX: Genocide In Bangladesh By Pakistani army 1971
Dakah, 26 July, (Asiantribune.com): Bangladesh was created after the India-Pakistan War of 1971, a conflict—elaborated in this report—that was preceded by the massacre of an estimated two million East Pakistani citizens and the ethnic cleansing of 10 million (mainly Hindus), who fled to India from that country. In the summary of his report dated November 1, 1971, US Senator Edward Kennedy (D - Massachusetts) wrote:
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.”
"They (Hindus) come out of East Pakistan in endless columns, along trails stained with tears and blood. They are dressed in rags, robbed of everything they owned, the women raped, the children gaunt from hunger. They have been on the move for up to a month, hiding from Pakistani soldiers by day, slogging through flooded rice paddies at night. A vengeful army pursues them to the very border of India. Rifle and machine gun fire crackles.
The bedraggled columns scatter for cover. But soon they are moving again, streaming into India. Sobbing violently, a middle-aged man says, “The soldiers took my two nephews. They kicked them with their boots, ducked them in an open sewer, then machine-gunned them. After that, they took 50 to 60 young men of our village into a field and killed them whit bayonets”.
A woman who was shot in the leg clutches her daughter and says, “ We were just about to cross the border when they started shooting at us. I don’t know what happened to my husband”. A ten-year old boy, who lost an eye when an army patrol threw a grenade at him as he was ending cattle in a field, says, “ Can anyone tell me what happened to my parents ?”Since late last March in 1971, when the Pakistani army launched this genocidal attack on the defenseless population of East Pakistan, more than eight million people have been driven from their native land. Millions more will surely follow. Moreover, the refugees have put grave strains on India, pushing India and West Pakistan to the brink of a war that could involve the two arch rivals of the communist world, the Soviet Union and China, The Readers' Digest wrote in November 1971
. ..While the horrors of the refugees are bad enough, something even more ghastly is going on inside East Pakistan, also known as East Bengal, Reader Digest added: An American missionary in Dacca grits his teeth and says, “ It’s murder - mass murder”. The military junta that Pakistan has tried to cover up the atrocities, and maintains that East Bengal has largely returned to normal. But one of the authors of this article, who spent two weeks there last August, found evidence to the country on every hand. Touring three districts of East Bengal by car, he found not a single village or town that had not suffered at the hands of the troops. Many towns were half-empty, homes and shops looted and burned, people either dead, driven into exile or hiding in the country side. Perhaps a third of Dacca’s population is gone; its economy is crippled and its people are so terrified that no one ventures outdoors at night. Not far from Dacca, a missionary said, “The soldiers killed 249 people in our village. Fortunately for the wounded, high-powered bullets tear right through them, so the doctors didn’t have to probe.” A farmer in a refugee camp along the Indian side of the border said, “The headmaster of our school was sitting on the veranda of his home, grading examination papers, when the soldiers dragged him out into the road and cut his throat.” Said another refugee, “The soldiers forced the doctor in our village to dig his own grave; then they shot him.” A doctor in a border hospital pointed to a woman who had been raped repeatedly by the troops in the presence of her four children after the soldiers had killed her husband
“On the afternoon of March 25, Yahya, having broken off the talks with Mujib, returned to West Pakistan. At 11 O’ clock that evening, Tikka Khan was unleashed.Suddenly, all of Dacca rocked with explosions. Troops opened fire with artillery on the city; tanks rumbled throughout he streets, gunning down anything that moved. The dormitories of the university, a stronghold of Bengali nationalism, were riddled by machine-gun fire. The invading soldiers went on a rampage in the old city, a particular political stronghold of Mujib, breaking down doors, dragging people into the street and shooting them. Shops were looted and burned. the barracks of the pro-Mujib Bengali police were gutted by tank cannon. Troops burst into a telephone exchange and killed 40 persons on duty.Special West Pakistani army squads had lists of people-professors, doctors, businessmen and other community leaders - whom they dragged off to army headquarters. Most have never been seen again. Although Mujib’s followers urged him to go into hiding, Mujib refused. Tikka’s troops took him off to imprisonment and an uncertain fate in West Pakistan.With Dacca in ruins, Tikka sent his troops into the countryside, and in each town the ghastly pattern was repeated. Anyone associated with the Awami League was killed. Young men, Muslim and Hindu alike, were rounded up and murdered. In almost everytown, refugees report, women were raped.
…The Indian government is making every effort to care for these piteous people, but the influx is so staggering that new miseries await them there. For instance, in one of more than a thousand squalid refugee camps in India, 150,000 people live in straw hovels surrounded by mud and filth. There are few latrines. and the stench is such that people cover their faces with cloth.
Because of the vast numbers, refugees have to wait in line for as long as ten hours for their food rations - ¾ pound of rice a day per adult, plus some lentils, vegetables when available, and a little salt and cooking oil.The children suffer the most. Many are beginning to look like the starving children of Biafra, their ribs protruding, their stomachs distended. Almost all suffer from malnutrition or dysentery. Life-giving milk and other protein foods are available in some of the camps, but the rush is so great that many children never get any. A doctor at a border hospital says, “the children die so quickly that we don’t have time to treat them.” [ *Article by David Reed and John E. Frazer, Readers’ Digest, November, 1971. ] "
The birth of Bangladesh in 1971 was a unique phenomenon- it was the first nation state to emerge after waging a successful liberation war against a post colonial state. The nine-month-long liberation war in Bangladesh drew world attention because of the genocide committed by Pakistan which resulted in the killings of approximately three million people and raping of nearly a quarter million girls and women. Ten million Bengalis reportedly took refuge in India to avoid the massacre of the Pakistan army and thirty million people were displaced within the country(Loshak,1971; Marcarenhas, 1971; Payne, 1973 ;Ayoob and Subramanyan, 1972; O’Donnell, 1984,Rounaq,2005,p.65)
Eye Witness Accounts
On the night of 25-26 March on the orders of General Yahya and the Pakistani ruling clique the Pak forces armed with mortars, cannons and recoilless guns attacked the citizen in their sleep.
In an attempt to drown in blood and silence in terror the upsurge of Bengali Nationalism, the military junta of Yahya Khan unleashed the most barbaric war of extermination against the entire people of Bangladesh. In the wake of this war the occupation Pakistani Army indulged in an unparalleled orgy of wanton loot, rape, murder and destruction. It is these gruesome happenings which have been characterized by U Thant, the Secretary General of the United Nations, as “one of the most tragic episodes in human history” and as “ a very terrible blot in the page of human history.”
Loren Jenkins of Newsweek, New York, was in Dhaka on March 25-26 and here is what he reported: “When the army decided to strike, it attacked without warning. Houses were machine-gunned at random. It was a blatant exercise in terror and vengeance, there can never be any excess for the sort of fire-power we saw and directed against unarmed civilians. There can be no excuse for the mescals burning of the shanty homes of some of the most impoverished people.” (April 12, 1971).
On March 25, 1971, the Pakistan army launched Operation Searchlight to 'eliminate' the Awami League and its supporters in East Pakistan. The goal was to 'crush' the will of the Bengalis. The killing began shortly after 10 pm. In the first 48 hours the orgy of killing had ravaged Dhaka city.
The Hindu population of Dhaka took the brunt of the slaughter. Dhaka University was targeted and Hindu students were gunned down. Mujib was arrested shortly after declaring Bangladesh independent. The rest of the Awami League leadership went into hiding and those that survived eventually fled to India. The genocide had just begun.
On February 22, 1971 the generals in West Pakistan took a decision to crush the Awami League and its supporters. It was recognised from the first that a campaign of genocide would be necessary to eradicate the threat: 'Kill three million of them,' said President Yahya Khan at the February conference, 'and the rest will eat out of our hands.' (Robert Payne, Massacre [1972], page 50.)
On March 25 the genocide was launched. The university in Dhaka was attacked and students exterminated in their hundreds. Death squads roamed the streets of Dhaka, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. It was only the beginning. Within a week, half the population of Dhaka had fled, and at least 30,000 people had been killed. Chittagong, too, had lost half its population.
All over East Pakistan people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April some 30 million people were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military. (Payne, Massacre, page 48.) Ten million refugees fled to India, overwhelming that country's resources and spurring the eventual Indian military intervention. (The population of Bangladesh/East Pakistan at the outbreak of the genocide was about 75 million.)
But the will of the Bengali people was not broken on the night of March 25, 1971. On the contrary, while Dhaka burned, so did the illusion of a united Pakistan.
Yahya Khan and the Pakistan army planned their genocide well. Yahya Khan aimed to crush the Bengali spirit once and for all. Before the crackdown all foreign journalists were expelled from East Pakistan. Only a handful managed to evade the Pakistani army.
One of them was Simon Dring. On March 30, 1971 he filed a chilling report of the massacre that took place in Dhaka on the night of March 25. Dring reported that in 24 hours of killing, the Pakistan army slaughtered as many as 7,000 people in Dhaka and up to 15,000 people in all of Bangladesh.
The Pakistan army employed tanks, artillery, mortars, bazookas and machine guns against the unarmed population of Dhaka. Their targets were students, local police, intellectuals, political leaders, Awami League supporters, Hindus and ordinary citizens. They carried out their ruthless killing spree with military precision.
Dring described the attack on Dhaka University as follows:
'Led by American-supplied M-24 World War II tanks, one column of troops sped to Dacca University shortly after midnight. Troops took over the British Council library and used it as a fire base from which to shell nearby dormitory areas.
'Caught completely by surprise, some 200 students were killed in Iqbal Hall, headquarters of the militantly antigovernment students' union, I was told. Two days later, bodies were still smoldering in burnt-out rooms, others were scattered outside, more floated in a nearby lake, an art student lay sprawled across his easel.
'Army patrols also razed nearby market area. Two days later, when it was possible to get out and see all this, some of the market's stall-owners were still lying as though asleep, their blankets pulled up over their shoulders.'
The 'old town' quarter of Dhaka city was singled out for destruction by the Pakistanis because of strong Awami League support there and because there were many Hindu residents in the area. Here is how Simon Dring described the attacks on unarmed civilians:
'The lead unit was followed by soldiers carrying cans of gasoline. Those who tried to escape were shot. Those who stayed were burnt alive. About 700 men, women and children died there that day between noon and 2 pm, I was told.
'In the Hindu area of the old town, the soldiers reportedly made the people come out of their houses and shot them in groups. The area, too, was eventually razed.
'The troops stayed on in force in the old city until about 11 pm on the night of Friday, March 26, driving around with local Bengali informers. The soldiers would fire a flare and the informer would point out the houses of Awami League supporters. The house would then be destroyed -- either with direct fire from tanks or recoilless rifles or with a can of gasoline, witnesses said.'
After having massacred 15,000 unarmed civilians in a single day, the Pakistani soldiers bragged about their invincibility to Simon Dring:
'"These bugger men," said one Punjabi lieutenant, "could not kill us if they tried."
'"Things are much better now," said another officer. "Nobody can speak out or come out. If they do we will kill them -- they have spoken enough -- they are traitors, and we are not. We are fighting in the name of God and a united Pakistan."' In the name of God and a united Pakistan, genocide had just begun.
Don Coggin, correspondent of Time, New York, reporting from Dacca wrote: “Before long, howitzer, tank, artillery and rocket blasts rocked half a dozen scattered sections of Dacca. Tracers arched over the darkened city. The staccato clatter of automatic weapons were punctuated with grenade explosions and tall columns of black smoke towered over the city. In the night came the occasional cry of ‘Joi Bangla’ (victory to Bengal) followed by a burst of machine gun fire” (Time, New York, April 5,1971).
Saturday Review, edited by Norman Cousins, reported : “A machine gun was installed on the roof of the terminal building at Sadarghat, the dock area of old Dacca. On March 26, all civilians within range were fired upon. After the massacre, the bodies were dragged into buses, some were burned. Some were dumped into the Buriganga river, adjacent to the terminal,” (Saturday Review, May 22,1971).
Quoting reports from British citizens who were evacuated from Dacca a few days after the start of the military operations, Guardian, London, April 5 wrote.
Another British eyewitness account described how troops in Dacca shot nine professors, their families, and 21 students in one of the University resident buildings. Similar attacks were alleged to have taken place in three halls. At Tanti Bazar, troops surrounded the area and set fire to the bamboo and thatched houses in an area of a quarter of square mile where thousands lived. Women and children who attempted to flee were machine-gunned and bayoneted.
“Two small Hindu villages on the infield of the Dhaka horse-racing tract (near the central district) were surrounded by the army and every man, woman and child was massacred. Three days later, a heap of bodies, three feet high, remained where they fell when they were machine-gunned.”
Sanders, an Englishman, is an eye-witness to the ghastly rape of the Bengali girl students at the Rokeya Hall of the Dacca University. In an impassioned letter to the editor of the Blitz, Bombay (April 11), Sanders wrote: “April 2, 1971. It was around 5 p.m. when about 350 to 400 Pakistani troops attacked the hall. They entered all the rooms lodging the girls and dragged them out, tearing off their clothing one by one. The girls were pinned down to the floor, face upwards, leg mercilessly pulled apart and fully stretched then finally the brutal act of ramming. It was at this juncture that 50 brave girls jumped to their death from the hall
