পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (অষ্টম খণ্ড).pdf/৫৭২

(#8& বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র : অষ্টম খন্ড হিন্দুস্থান ষ্ট্যাণ্ডার্ড ১২ এপ্রিল, ১৯৭১ EWACUEES NARRATE ARMY ATROCITIES ΒΥΝΑRΑΥΑΝΙΟΑSS HARIDASPUR BORDER (Check-post), April. The Pakistani troops advanced further from Jhikargacha on Sunday morning, uprooting as they went hundreds of panic-stricken villagers of either side of the Jessore Road. The refugees took shelter in Petrapol reception centre recently opened by the State Government for them. The Pakistani troops who faced a stiff resistance from the freedom fighters, set fire to many villages and killed many people. In some places they forced the people to open their shops at gun point and hoist the Pakistani Flag. Walking along the Jessore Road with some of the member so the Mukti Fouj. I saw many people with their belongings coming towards the Haridaspur border. In some houses, people were seen packing up to leave their homes for safer places. While crossing over to Haridaspur side, a middleaged man Torab Ali of Benapol said, “Can you imagine how sad it is to leave the ancestral home?” Despite this, Torab Ali has a firm belief that Bangladesh would be completely liberated and they would be able to return their homes. Over five thousand people from village including Navaran, Jhikargacha, Sarsha, Benapol and Jessore town have been given shelter in Petrapol camp and in another camp in Mama Bhagne village near the Bogra border. Most of these villages have been deserted. More than 350 families crossed the border on Sunday alone. Narrating the atrocities committed by the Pakistani troops on the unarmed village people Mrs. Hosne Ara of an adjoining village of Jessore told this reporter that the Pakistani troops entered every house of their area and asked them to raise slogan “Pakistan, zindabad”. If anybody hesitated to raise the slogan, he was immediately shot dead. They looted the belongings of the people, snatched ornaments from the women and later they were killed. In reply to my question as to how she could save herself, she said “As the army men were rushing to our village I started running desperately carrying my three-year-old child and took shelter in a bush, I spent the whole night there and next day I came to the house of my relative in Benapol in a vehicle provided by Mukti Fouz. After four days I crossed the border. I do not know what has happened to my husband who went to a local hat in the evening”. Saying this she burst into tears. A 60-year-old man Harmat Ali Mandal of Jessore town who lost three of his sons, could not talk to me as he was weeping all the time. Some people were seen consoling him.