1972 visit to war
torn Bangladesh
By
Prakash Subbarao
I have traveled a fair bit in my time but the most exciting journey I have
ever made came in early 1972.
I was in Calcutta then, on a holiday
during my college vacation. My close friend and neighbour in Bangalore,
Naren Udaygiri, was with me.
The Pakistani Army Commander in the
Eastern Command, Lt. General A. A. K. Niazi, had surrendered to Lt.
General Jagjit Singh Aurora of the Indian Army on 16th December, 1971 and
Bangladesh had been borne. My father had a lot of contacts with the
Government-in-exile of Bangladesh and so I pestered him to take me to
Bangladesh.
All one needed in the days immediately after the war was a pass signed by
the Indian Army or issued by the Bangladesh Government in Exile which
operated from a building in South Calcutta and called itself “Mujibnagar”
after Mujibur Rehman.
We got the pass from the Army and on 2nd January set out to see the new
country. I took along my mother’s camera, a Leica with a Zeus Icon lens.
Another hardy piece of equipment that she had purchased in 1958 and which
was still going strong in 1972.
My father had told me that we would go to Bangladesh only on one condition
– that we would leave very early in the morning and return the same day.
In those days it was very dangerous as there were a lot of fleeing
Pakistani troops who were still armed and a lot of Razakar’s – Bihari
Muslim civilians who had supported the Pakistanis violent suppression of
the people of former East Pakistan.
The Benapole border
The border is not very far from Calcutta and can be reached fairly
quickly. When we got there, there seemed to be some sort of commotion
going on. This was at Petrapole, on the Indian side. Apparently a car
trying to smuggle guns had been detected by the Indian Army and we were
advised that there would be a long delay.
We got out of the car to stretch our
legs and to try and work our way out of the jam. We were in luck – there
was a Mukti Bahini officer (a Bangladeshi Freedom Fighter), Arun Barun
Biswas, who was in a hurry to get to his place and he offered to get us
out of the traffic jam and moving if we could drop him at Khulna. We
agreed and thereby started a great adventure.
Using his influence we were off in minutes. He knew everyone at the
customs. We came to a halt at the Benapole Land Customs on the Bangladesh
side which is a little further down the road. There we saw a very
young boy, maybe just 15 years old but already a hardened Mukti Bahini
fighter standing on guard with a Lee Enfield 303 rifle. The rifle was
almost three fourths his height!
We were soon waved through when they saw Arun Barun Biswas with us.
Tension in the air........
As soon as we entered Bangladesh, we
could feel a strange tension in the air. Everywhere we looked, we saw
scenes of destruction. Railway lines torn up, burnt cars and trucks on the
side of the roads, buildings bearing bullet holes indicative of the
aimless firing of machine guns......
There were no civilians on the
streets. Just Indian Army soldiers everywhere.
A blown up bridge
Just after the border comes the town
of Jessore with its Cantonment. It was here that I got my first taste of a
war zone.
In their bid to stop the advance of
the Indian Army, the Pakistani troops had blown up the bridge and the
Indian Army had created a temporary floating pontoon bridge. Huge Army
trucks were crossing and had preference and we had to wait till they got
across. It was like a scene out of a war movie!
All the buildings were pock marked with bullet marks. There were burnt out
petrol stations all along the route. The road, though a metal one, was
rough because it had been churned up by tank tracks.
There were Indian Army 'Shaktiman'
trucks patrolling everywhere, with a machine gun mounted on the roof and
an alert gunner scanning the area for any disturbance.
Tanks with live ammo
A little further we came a cross a
Sherman T-42 Pakistani Army tank that had been abandoned. The machine gun
with live ammunition dangling from it was still in the turret! I hopped
off the car and stood on the tank and was duly photographed.
Foxholes
I asked Biswas whether he had been a
participant in the war in this sector. He said 'yes'. "The Indian Army did
not use the roads but traveled off the road, in the fields" he told me. He
said that he would show us us foxholes where the Pak Army had dug in. We
detoured and saw the foxholes. Some of them had suffered direct hits by
Indian Air Force aircraft but many were intact.
In one foxhole there was a live
unexploded rocket! It would have detonated at the slightest vibration and
seeing this made our hairs stand on end in fright. We tiptoed away from
it.
A Razakar has just been captured
A little further we saw a huge group of people standing in the middle of
the road. There seemed to be a lot of commotion and we immediately knew
that something out of the ordinary was taking place. We stopped the car
and elbowed our way forward to see what it was.
A Razakar had been captured!
We saw this bearded person in ethnic
dress with his hands tied behind his back being marched by a huge crowd.
We were told that they would probably finish him off in the next few
minutes. I asked whether I could take a photograph. "Yes" Biswas
said and promptly introduced us to the crowd as "international
photographers"!!!
(You will read later in this article
that I lost the pictures that I took during this trip; I had safeguarded
them for 29 years and lost them, in Dubai, in 2003. However, if you'd like
to get an idea of what it looked like when a Razakar was captured,
see this image on the net.
Biswas got off in Khulna and we were sorry to see him go. We had lost a
good guide and a person who had had firsthand knowledge of the war in this
sector.
Almost mistaken for Pakistanis!
On the way back, I wanted to have a
cigarette and so we stopped the car. My friend Naren Udaygiri (sadly no
more in this world) and I strolled off the road for a hundred metres or
so.
I lit a cigarette.
I suddenly became aware of a group
of villagers eyeing us out of the corner of their eye.
"Kya baath hai!?" I asked them.
They instantly started slowly
creeping upon us the way they would on a wild animal, intent on capturing
it. I realized with a shock that they thought we were Pakistani! Hindi and
Urdu are so similar that instead of welcoming me as an Indian they were
trying to capture me thinking I was a Pakistani!
"Aami Indian aachee!" (I am an
Indian) I told them in broken Bengali. "Aamee Kolkatta thakay aaschee" (I
have come from Calcutta). Aamaar gaadi raastaa thakay aachay!" (My car is
on the road). That slowed their advance and they followed us back to
the road. When they saw a Calcutta registered Ambassador car (WBG 8537)
they relaxed and it was only then that we saw a few smiles. I
tentatively offered a hand shake to the headman and he reciprocated
warmly. We were now no longer Pakistani's but liberating Indians! They
waved as we drove away.
We were soon back at the Indian border. We were actually happy to be back
in India. The safety that India exudes is unbelievable and can be felt
only after such trysts with danger. We were finally able to let our guard
down and relax!
The saddest part of this story is
that I lost all the pictures taken on this trip. It happened in Dubai. I
was telling some colleagues about the trip and I could see that they felt
I was pulling a fast one. I took the pictures to the office to show it to
them. There were four or five pictures - me standing on the tank with live
ammo, the Jessore bridge in pieces, the Razakar been marched off, hands
tied behind his back................
I lost the envelope with the picture
in them, a few days later.
With it went the chance of proving
the above strange tale.
It is 100% true, I assure you.
To the
Article Index!
All articles
©
Prakash Subbarao. All
rights reserved.
