Syeda Mazhar
War crimes and violence have always been one of the over-glossed focus in history. While the saying goes, “one man’s terrorists is another man’s freedom fighter”, it is known that the Mukti Bahini although, reviled in Pakistan are undoubtedly held in high esteem in Bangladesh. Mukti Bahini, also known as the Liberation Army, did unleash serious heinousness upon the Biharis. India also played a major role in training the faction to dismember Pakistan. Since 1960s, Indian authorities trained and funded the group from its own land and under its own discretion. This project began materializing even faster after the formation of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in 1968. But the foundation of the Mukti Bahini was already laid during the times of RAW’s predecessor, Intelligence Bureau (IB). Hence, in the sub-continent, India laid the foundation of cross-border terrorism.
Mukti Bahini was preceded by the Mukti Fauj which in return was preceded denominationally by the Sangram Parishad. Mukti Bahini guerillas along with RAW operatives and regulars from the Indian Army operated from the training camps in the Indian states of West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura. According to Archer Blood, an American career diplomat who served as the last American Consul General to Dhaka, “Indian soil was made available for training camps, hospitals and supply depots for the Mukti Bahini” and the Mukti Bahini had a “safe haven to which it could retire for rest, food, medical supplies and weapons….”
The Mukti Bahini has been glorified as a resistance movement, not only received support from India, where people in the eastern and northeastern states share a common Bengali ethnic and linguistic heritage with East Pakistan but its units were trained in guerrilla warfare by Major General Shabdeg Singh in Agartala, much before the war of succession was launched. Initially, the Mukti Bahini received a battering at the hands of regular Pakistan Army so Indian forces joined the Mukti Bahini in their garb to support their operations.
By late 1970, the group, aided and trained by India, had begun undertaking subversive activities targeting power plants, railways, industries, bridges, fuel depots, looting banks, raiding warehouses, mining ships and killing non-Bengalis. Some of the details of atrocities committed by Mukti Bahini terrorists against innocent civilians and Pakistanis include looting, plunder, rape and slaughter of non-Bengalis.
As per the 1951 census there were 671,000 Biharis in East Pakistan-and imagine up to 20 percent of the entire Bihari population was massacred by the Mukti Bahini. According to Yasmin Saikia’s ‘Women, War and the Making of Bangladesh’, thousands of Bihari women were raped and tortured by the Mukti Bahini
Looting of government godowns in Feni, looting of National Bank of Pakistan and taking away Rs 6 lakh (0.6 Million) to India, blowing bridges on Comilla-Chittagong Road to hinder the move of Pakistan Army in March,1971, forcible collection of 30 buses, 50 trucks and one jeep and taking them away to India where running a transport service to easily carry on exploiting this looted property of the people of Pakistan crown just one person’s head, a certain Noor ul Haq son of Abul Majid, belonging to Village Hajipur. There were various Noorul Haqs during that time that gained popularity carrying out felonies they were not charged for and were backed by India.
In addition, It also unleashed a well-organized plan of psychological warfare, creation of polarization among the armed forces, propaganda by false allegations of use of Bangladesh territory by ISI, creation of dissension’s among the political parties and religious sects, control of media, denial of river waters, and propping up a host of disputes in order to keep Bangladesh under a constant political and socio-economic pressure.
Mukti Bahini was not all about “freedom fighters” alone. It was trained and led by RAW with RAW operatives manning this insurgent organization. It not only massacred non-Bengalis and pro-Pakistan Bengalis, it also killed and raped Bengali population wearing the uniform of Pakistan army to drive a wedge between people and the armed forces.
“We all got our fair share of thrills as we routinely went in with the Mukti Bahini to register targets. Usually we would have a sprinkling of our boys mixed with the freedom fighters, and on one occasion I found myself on a reconnaissance of a bridge with the Mukti Bahini…” an ex Indian officer proudly reminiscing about his days fighting along-side the Mukti Bahini against Pakistan. He even scoffed as the need to maintain secrecy about India’s involvement in the 1971 war. Much like its current Prime Minister today.
Moreover, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, proudly accepted India’s involvement in “assisting” the Bengalis in acquiring independence, recently. Modi shamelessly boasted about the major role played by India to the youth of Bangladesh about systematically interfering in another sovereign state’s internal matters with clear aims of jeopardizing Pakistan’s territorial integrity. Throughout the course of history, India has been employ terrorists for decades. Be it in East Pakistan, Srilanka, Afghanistan, even in Balochistan today and elsewhere. It created and used proxies in pursuit of foreign policy objectives.
Now after 45 years of independence the government of Bangladesh is engaged in attempts to condemn the Bengali alleged to have supported the Pakistani Army. Now these people will be condemned without a fair hearing just to glorify the Bangladeshi imagination of being betrayed. Pakistan government should protest against this unfair trial and judgment of these innocent people and demand to prosecute the ones they have on their own records for murder, rape and looting. False claims and fake condemnations to satisfy their own agenda will not actually change the actual history. A good retaliation against the Bangladesh government would be to air the actual facts to the international community.
