Awami League (PDM), Council Muslim League, Jamal-i-Islam, Nizam-e-Islam and the National Democratic Front-met on January 10 in Dacca.
I returned from a meeting of the Central Bar Council in Karachi to find that the leaders were still finding it difficult to agree upon a common charter of demands. The main obstacle to agreement arose from unwillingness of the Punjabi leaders to endorse the six point autonomy formula. There was also reluctance to press for withdrawal of the Agartala Conspiracy case. The Awami League leaders insisted upon the inclusion of these points in the common charter as a condition for their participation in the Democratic Action Committee which was proposed to be set up.
These deliberations among the opposition leaders of the two wings reflected the divergence in the aims of the political leaders of the two wings. This divergence was glossed over at this stage by including a common demand for a “federal parliamentary Government.” The point programme on the basis of which the students had launched their popular movement however had already incorporated the substance of the six-point programme as an integral part of their programme.
The popular movement continued to escalate. The Democratic Action Committee which had been formed called a “National Protest Day” on January protest Day on January 17. It had decided it necessary to violate any order prohibiting processions under section 144 of the Criminal procedure code. Indeed the Democratic Acton Committee Leaders assembled in front of Bait-ul-Mukaarram in the center of the city and symbolically violated the Order under Section 144. This was significant enough since it was the first time that political leaders committed to constitutional politics had, by a deliberate act violated the lea. Students who represented the militant wing of the popular movement were not content with symbolic defiance. A massive procession of students set out from the University and was confronted by the police, who opened fire. An young student, Asad, was killed. The blood of martyrs is the most powerful fuel for popular movements. After Asad had laid down his life the leadership of the movement virtually rested with the students action Committee rather that the DAC. The agitation intensified throughout the eastern wing and despite the fact that a proclamation of emergency was still in force massive demonstrations and processions became the order of the day. Police firing claimed further young lives and the military were deployed to aid the police. Practically every order of the law enforcing agencies was met with defiance, the curfew imposed in the cities was violated every now and then and, in some cases, a kind of resistance was put up against the army. In their attempt to enforce law and order the army resorted to indiscriminate firing that killed among others a schoolboy in a procession, a housewife in her home, a child on her mother’s lap and a university teacher within the premises of his campus. The government had completely collapsed in the face of intense agitation. In the countryside the local action committees had virtually replaced the law enforcing agencies. In the urban areas the student leaders were invited to settle disputes between the management and the laborers who were demanding higher wages and better working conditions.
The popular agitation in the western wing had also been gathering momentum. It was clear that Ayub's government which had only a few months ago celebrated the
