POGROM IN PAKISTAN

The SUNDAY TIMES 20th June,1971
 
*Teachers, Writers, Journalists eliminated
*Magistrates short,
*Doctors disappears
* Gestapo-like raids, rape, extortion.

LAST WEEK the Sunday Times published a first-hand report by Anthony Mascarenhas about the excess of the Pnkistan Army in East Pakistan. Now we have had news more up to date and detailed and perhaps even more horrify¬ing of what is happening in East Pakistan. This is not by Anthony Mascarenhas, but it comes to us from academic and professional sources we know to be unimpeachable.
A NEW campaign of terror has begun in East Pakistan. Its aim is to eliminate any possibility of another secessionist uprising or political challenge to the unity of the state.
The Military government in Dacca has ordered a two¬pronged follow-up to its defeat of the Bangla Desh forces in the field. First, all public servants, teachers, writers, journalists and industrialists are being screened.
Second, anyone considered potentially dangerous is being “eliminated”. Army intelligence has already begun arresting and interrogating teachers, journalists and other influential Bengalis. A list of suspects, thought to be either suporters or sympathisers of the secessionist Awami League has been prepared.
They are being classified in three categories—white, grey and black. The white will be given clearance. The grey will lose their jobs and may be imprisoned. The black will be shot.
Action against the Civil Service has already begun and 36 Bengali District Magistrates and sub-divisional officers have either been killed or have fled to the other side.
When army units entered the towns of Comilla, Rangpur, Kushtia, Noakhali, Faridpur and Serajganj. The local magistrates and the police superintendents were shot out of hand.
Civil servants on the grey list have been transferred to West Pakistan. They include Taslim Ahmed, Inspector- General of Police. When the army struck Dacca on the night of 25th March, the police revolted and fought for 18 hours.
A new element in the regime of terror is the Gestapo- style pick-up. Some of those wanted for questioning are arrested openly. Others are called to the army cantonment for interrogation. Most of them do not return. Those who do are often picked up again by secret agent known as RAZAKARS, a term used by the volunteers of the Nizam of Hyderabad who resisted the Indian takeover of the State in 1948. Razakars literally means duty to the King or State.
By night and day parts of Dacca are sealed off by troops searching for Hindus, Awami Leaguers and students. Everyone must carry an identity card. Cars are stopped and searched and the entrances to the city are blocked by check- posts.
If the jawan (infantryman) at the post finds anyone without an identity card and is in no mood to listen, a trip to the cantonment may follow.
Dacca is frequently shaken by bomb blasts after which security is tightened and areas searched for “miscreants” the army term for members of the MUKTI FOUJ. (Liberation army).
Whatever the army has completed its task of clearing an area of ‘‘miscreants” it is replaced by the militia. These are- tough, frontier people who are considered more ruthless and less disciplined than the regular army. They are paid three rupees (about 18p) a day and are lured to East Pakistan by the promise of booty.
The persecution of East Pakistan’s Hindu minority and the surviving elements of its Bengali nationalism has a quality of casual horror about it.
Shanker, a college student of Jagannath College, escaped to a nearby village on 27th March. Two months later he returned alone to see what remained of his home at Thatari Bazer. Two non-Bengalis, spotted him shouted “Hindu”, “Hindu” and a chase developed. The boy was caught and taken in procession to the mosque where his throat was cut.
Abu Awal, the district magistrate, at Bhola, had the reputation of being a loyal government servant. He protected the non-Bengali population when the Awami League rose in revolt and prevented the Police station armoury from falling into the hands of the Mukti Fouj.
 When they attacked on 1st May, he went to receive them. The Brigadier in charge of the action asked him to resume his pout. He had hardly turned his back on the officers, when a sepoy shot him with a rifle.
About a dozen Bengali army officers were transferred to West Pakistan. They said goodbye to their families and reported at Dacca Airport to board a PIA flight to Karachi. Their families have not so far heard from them. When they inquired at Army headquarters they were told that they had deserted. The mutilated body of a major was delivered to his family with a letter of regret that he had committed suicide.
The whereabouts of Brig. Majumdar, one of the best known Bengali officers, is unknown. He stayed with his Punjabi colleagues when his Bengali troops revolted in Chittagong. When his family asked about him, they were told that any inquiry would invite trouble.
On the night of June 2, an army jeep entered the Dhanmondl residential area of Dacca. A government officer called Huq was dragged out of his house and taken to Kurmitola army cantonment.
His wife telephoned Shafiul Azam, civilian head of the East Pakistani government who contacted army headquarters and was told no one called Huq had been brought in.
An industrialist, Ranada Shaha, was told to arrange a gala evening for army officers at his village home in Mirza- pur. He went to discuss the arrangements and did not return.
Troops surrounded the house of a civil servant called Amin. He was taken away in an army truck with his aged parents, his wife and three children. His brother was an officer in Bengal Regiment which revolted and is now lead¬ing the Bangla Desh resistance near Comilla. The Amin family returned two days later without Mr. Amin.
A captain entered Mitford Hospital in Dacca with two soldiers on 15th May, went to Ward Two and led away Dr. Rahman and another of his colleagues. They were told they were needed to work in Mymensingh. Their whereabouts are now unknown.
Other troops went to American-run Holy Family Hospital but there were no surgeons, there. The hospital is now considering closing down because many of its doctors have fled including the renowned child specialist, Dr. M. N. Huq.
At Sylhet, all doctors except Surgeon-General Dr. Shamsuddin, fled across the border when the army entered the town. A major found Dr. Shamsuddin in the hospital theatre and shot him point blank.
Most of the senior Bengali officers of the PIA are missing after being picked up, including Mr. Fazlul Huq, Deputy Managing Director for East Pakistan and Captain Sekander Ali, chief sector pilot. Since the military takeover the air¬line has dismissed about 2,000 Bengalis.
Razakars have seized the two children of Major Khaled Mosharraf of the Bengal Regiment who deserted to the Mukti Fouj. The children aged six and four were first taken as hostages by the army. Their mother escaped to India. The children were released but then retaken.
Relatives of missing persons believe that the Razakars are junior army officers working independently in league with non-Bengalis. Some families have received ransom demands and one case is known of the money being paid without success.
The Razakars have now extended their operations from murder and extortion to prostitution. In Agrabad in Chitta¬gong, they run a camp of young girls who, are allocated night¬ly to senior officials. They have also kidnapped girls for their parties. Some have not returned. Ferdausi, the lead¬ing Bengali singer, narrowly escaped a similar fate when army officers entered her home. Her mother telephoned a general whom she knew and military police were sent to her rescue.
A recent development is the return to duty, under dur¬ess, of a number of Intelligence Department official who went abltnt in March in response to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s call for non-cooperation with the federal government.
They are now obliged to submit the names of “undesir- able persons" to the army, which is taking care not to pick up the wrong people UN it did on the nights of 25th and 26th March.
On those two nights, the army killed more than 20 University professors, Of these, Dr. Moniruzzaman of the Physics Department was shot dead instead of his namesake in the Bengali Department, Mr. Monaim of the English Department was similarly killed instead of Mr. Munir, also of the Bengali Department.
Some University teachers reported for duty on 1st June at
the instigation of General Tikka Khan, the Martial Law Ad¬ministrator, hut some of them have since fallen into the hands of the KAZAKAUS.
The activities of RAZAKARS are known, if not overtly approved, by the military administration. Occasionally, they are a source of concern. Recently the administration managed to induce ii few hundred jute workers to resume production in Dacca, On 2!Hh May three of their trade union lenders were taken away in an army jeep. By the following day the workers had fled.
The PROBLEMS of return for the 6 million refugees seem  insuperable. In Dacca, Jessore, Rangpur, Ishurdi, Khulna and Chittagong their houses and shops have been taken over by non Bengalis.
Backed  by the army on 28th April, they cleared Mirpur and Mohammadpur, two residential districts covering 15 square miles in Dacca, of their entire Bengali population, killing everyone who hud Ignored an advance warning to leave.
In JESSORE  soldiers surrounded the house of Mr. Masihur Rahaman, an Awami League member of the National Assem¬bly, and non-Bengali civilians went in killing everyone. A 10 years old boy jumped from the first floor and was shot in mid-air by a sepoy.
Organisation earing for the refugees who came into East Pakistan at the time of Partition and the Razakar backed ‘Peace Committee’ are publishing press notices inviting ap¬plications for “allotment” of shops and houses left by Bengalis.
In Chittagong locked shops and houses in Laldighi and Reazuddin Bazar were broken open by the army and handed over to non-Bengalis. Nearly all sequestered property now has signboards and name-plates in Urdu, the language of West Pakistan.
In the villages the houses have been distributed among members of the right wing Jamat-e-Islam and Muslim League which were humiliated in the last election by the Awami League.
All Hindu bank accounts have also been frozen, together with those of suspected Awami League supporters. The manager of the British National & Grindlays Bank in Dacca was the only banker to have queried the directive.
Bengalis have also been forbidden to approach major railway, port and dock installations. When 5,000 labourers returned to work in Chittagong docks on 1st May, they were driven away. The installations are now run by military, naval and non-Bengali personnel.
Senior railway officers in Chittagong were shot and the workers colony burnt down. In Dacca, Ishurdi and Syedpur no Bengali dares approach a railway junction.
At Dacca and Chittagong airports, 250 porters were flown in from West Pakistan to replace the Bengalis.
Three thousand Punjabi police now patrol Dacca while Khyber Rifles from the North-West Frontier and Rangers from the West Pakistan border, man police stations outside.
Most of the 10,000 militiamen in East Pakistan Rifles who revolted in March have either crossed the border or are hiding in the villages. Those who responded to an amnesty call surrendered in Dacca on 15th May, they were seen being driven away in open trucks blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs.
A few days later hundreds of naked corpses were found in the river Buriganga and Sitalakhya.
The East Pakistan Rifles have now been renamed the Pakistan Defence Force and hundreds of Biharis have been recruited. They are now being trained with rifles and ma¬chine-guns at Peelkhana.
On 28th May, in the Khilgaon district of Dacca, 100 suspects were picked up after a bomb damaged a non-Bengali shop.
At Motljhool, n non-Bengali demanded 10,000 rupees (about £ (100) from his neighbour, threatening to hand him over to the army if the money was not paid within 24 hours.
A radio and camera retailer in Stadium Market, Dacca found his stock missing on the 12th May, and reported the inci¬dent to the Martial Law Headquarters. That night during curfew, the shop was set on fire.
Begum Majeda, a housewife, was fetching water from a street tap. Two Punjibi policemen tried to lift her on to a truck. She screamed and the Punjabis were beaten off with stick and stones. That night whole of the Bashabo area was set on fire.
It is now considered unsafe to wear wristwatches on the streets in Dacca and transistor radios and television sets are kept hidden at home. Soldiers sell looted transistors, TV sets and wrist watches  at between £ 3 and £ 6 each on the streets.
One olllcer Colonel Abdul Bari, has deposited one crore of rupees the equivalent of £ 833,000—at the State Bank of Pakistan.
Efforts are now being made to clean the cities up, just before the sponsored visit to Dacca of a small party of forcing journalists in May. The bodies of students were removed from Jugannath Hall and Iqbal Hall in the University Campus and debris was cleared away from the shelled areas of Shakharipatti, Tantibazar, Shantinagar and Rajarbagh.
Schools and colleges have reopened but there are few students. One school with 800 students before the fighting reopen with only ten.
Most young people between the ages of 16 and 26 have crossed the  border to join the MUKTI FOUJ training camps.
Their widespread fear is that to be young in East Pakistan is to be killed. They nurture the hope also that they may one day live in a free BANGLADESH.