পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/১৯১

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বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খণ্ড
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 These are the tales of some of the people encountered on a trip through East Pakistan. As with the doctor, the names of Bengalis and the towns in which they live are omitted. Bengalis in talking to a reporter fear for their lives. Most don't talk at all; in some towns not even beggars will approach a stranger. Normally among the world's most voluble people, the. Bengalis now talk mostly with their eyes-eyes that look away in fear or that stare down in shame or that try to express meanings in furtive glances.

 A lawyer and his sons have been fortunate. When one asks a Bengali how he is these days, he replies. “I am alive.” The lawyer and his sons not only are alive but are Jiving in their own home. They are also hiding in their own home, for they leave it only rarely. “It is too easy to be arrested on the street,” the lawyer says. “A seven-year-old can point a finger at me and call me a miscreant, and I will be taken away."

 Miscreant is the term the Pakistan army applies to all who oppose it. “All Bengali are miscreants now,” the lawyer's younger son says. He is a law student, but students are a special army target, and most are in hiding. The universities are closed. “What use would there be learning law anyway now that there is no law in our country?” the son asks.

 It is evening, and the discussion is taking place in the lawyer's home. Before talking, he closes the wooden shutters on the windows. Then he has second thoughts'-someone who passes by may report a conspiracy” -and so the shutters are partly reopened.

 They talk of “the troubles” of how, when word of the army's March 25 attack in Dacca reached this town, the Awami League took control. There was orderly rule under the Bangladesh flag until mid-April, when air-force planes strafed the town. People panicked. The Awami Leaguers and their military force, the Mukti Bahini, began to flee along with thousands of others. But it was several days before the army reached the town, and during that time angry Bengali mobs attacked and slaughtered hundreds of Biharis.

 Relative to its actions elsewhere, the army, when it arrived, showed restraint. Most of the town remains undamaged, although much of it was looted by the army and its mobs. About half the population has returned and many shops have reopened, though not under former management. Hindu shopkeepers have disappeared, and Biharis and other army backers have taken over. And. as everywhere, the arrests continue.

 Four Christian Bengalis are arrested by the army at a roadblock. Not many buses travel East Pakistan's roads these days and those that do are frequently stopped, and their passengers are lined up and searched. Few of the soldiers at these checkpoints speak any Bengali (Urdu is the language of West Pakistan), and so a common way of finding “miscreants” is to lift men's sarongs. Moslems arc circumcised; Hindus aren't. Some West Pakistani soldiers came to East Pakistan thinking all Bengalis were Hindu. More sophisticated soldiers simply think that all” Hindus are “miscreants,” but then so are many Bengali Moslems. So it is all very confusing for the soldiers, and the four Christians are arrested.

For Christians, No Beatings

 They are taken to a military cantonment and beaten for several hours by interrogators who don't speak their language. A Westerner hears of their arrest and protests. So the matter comes to the attention of an army major, who summons the four Christians and offers apologies: “It is our policy not to beat Christians,” he explains.