Nothing was forgotten in the past 50 years by a daughter Lubna and a son Bulbul, nothing will be forgotten until this generation dies with the loving memories.
Shahreen Rahman, popularly known as Lubna, is the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Dr Abul Fazal Ziaur Rahman, who has served the Pakistan Army Medical Corps (AMC) since 1949.
For fifty years, Lubna is still haunted by her memories of agony and pain in her heart. She was playing with dolls in front of the staff quarters in Sylhet. A Lieutenant of the Pakistan Army arrived and was accompanied bysepoys(soldiers) and asked her wheredo Col Zia live.
The girl-child volunteered to take the soldiers upstairs where Col Zia was hidingin a staff quarter of Sylhet Medical College (now Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College).
On a fateful day, Col Zia desired to eat ‘bhuna-khichuri’ (rice cooked with lintel and spices). The young officer told what Zia was expecting, and without any argument, he quickly changed into a shirt and trousers.
The ‘khichuri’ was lying on the dining table while he was escorted out and never returned to his family. Col Zia is an unsung hero, missing since April 14, 1971 –it was Pahela Baishak (Bangla news years).
His whereabouts could not be known, nor his body was recovered. An eyewitness claimed that he was taken to Sylhet Airport and was executed along with other rebels on the tarmac. Well, his wife Ferdousi Chowdhury could not verify the information. Possibly he was buried in a massgrave beside the runway. Unfortunately, the site of the mass grave could not be identified.
Zia was a military surgeon and was posted as Principal and Superintendent of Sylhet Medical Collegein 1968.
He was an outspoken supporter of Bangladesh’s independence and dreamt that the country would be independent of the shackles of the Pakistan junta.
Despite being cautioned by well-wishers and his family, he was frequently visited by Col (retd) MAG Osmani, a senior Awami League leader [later Commander-in-Chief of Bangladesh Liberation Force or Mukti Bahini] at his official quarter in Sylhet.
Born in Araihazar Upazila, Narayanganj in 1926, he studied medicine at Campbell Medical College (now Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College), Kolkata. After graduation in 1947, he joined Pakistan Army Medical Corps.
Tensof thousands of people burst into anger when General Yayha Khan, Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA), and President of Pakistan cancelled the maiden parliament session scheduled to be held in Dhaka on March 1, 1971.
The cancellation sparked nationwide street protests and Sylhet also became violent. The Sylhet Medical College was overwhelmed with wounded protesters and weretreated mostly for bullet wounds. Col Zia, a seasoned surgeon took care of the protesters in the Operation Theatre.
Inearly March, Col Zia on a phone conversation barked at Col Sharfaraz of Sylhet Regional Martial Law Administrator and categorically told him that “It’s simple, I will not treat [your soldiers]. You are shooting our innocent civilians [Bangalee] right and left and you are asking for treatment [of your troops]?”
He argued: “Your soldiers are entitledto CMH (Combined Military Hospital), so take them to CMH,” according to a short biography contributed by his wife Prof Ferdousi Chowdhury, published in Shadhinata Juddhei Army Medical Corps (2010).
The second round of heated quarrel erupted with the Punjabi officer [Col Sharfaraz] when he visited the medical college. Troops accompanying Sharfaraz urged a request for orders to shoot the ‘gaddhar’ (traitor) Zia for being defiant in defending ‘Banglaee nationalism’ and demanded that Pakistan troops should withdraw from his motherland.
On March 3, he got a small ‘Joy Bangla’ flag of independent Bangladesh. While driving in Sylhet city, the flag fluttered on his official military vehicle. Another independence flag was hoisted at his official residence.
Prof Ferdousi believes that the display of the independence flag on his car and residence invited trouble.
Afterhearing of the historic 7th March speech of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, he was so excited that he told his doctor colleagues in the hospital, as well as the Pakistani soldiers that all directives have been given by Bangabandhu, now it’s time foran armed struggle for independence.
Five days after the crackdown codenamed “Operation Searchlight” by the occupation Pakistan troops to smash the rebellion, on April 1, a rebellion erupted among soldiersin the Punjab Regiment in Sylhet. A military vehicle dropped a grievously wounded Bangalee military officer and a military doctor.
On April 9, Pakistan troops raided the hospital on information that the rebel officers were being treated and sheltered in the hospital. The raiders were frustrated to find none.
Col Zia was,however, confined to his residential quarters and was refused to buy essentials and groceries. His family along with his wife, daughter, and son starved.
Lubna was five years old on the fateful day of his father’s disappearance. Since then she never observed Pahela Baishak nor ate khichuri.
The celebration of Bangla New Year’s festivity does not arouse sentimental values in her mind. For fifty years she remains in solitude and silently weeps on PahelaBaishak missing her brave father.
Like Lubna, a similar story is of an acclaimed press photographer Bulbul Ahmed who also does not observe Pahela Baishak.
On acritical day,another unsung hero Abdul Bari Howlader was shot and killed at TB Hospital in Rajshahi by the marauding Pakistan military.
His crime was harbouring the mutineers of the para-military border force (East Pakistan Rifles). The rebels dug trenches in the TB Hospital compound to ambush the train bringing Pakistan troops reinforcement to Rajshahi.
On April 7, nearly 40 hungry rebellious troops of EPR led by an officer Shah Alam barged into the TB Hospital for food. They knew that Howlader, who was responsible for meals for the hospital patients can organise food for them. Bulbul’s mother with kitchen staff prepared food for the glorious guests.
For a week, Bulbul’s mother Nur Jahan Begum offered ripe bananas, ‘banghi’, and watermelon was grown in the hospital compound to the EPR guarding the trenches and rooftop watch towers with heavy machine guns.
Rajshahi city and its fringes were free from the occupation forces till April 14. On that day, Pakistan’s air force jets pounded bombs and strafed on rebel strongholds. The rebel’s fortress in Rajshahi collapsed and made a strategic retreat towardsthe Indian border.
Pakistan troops went berserk in the Rajshahi city and were given orders to shoot and kill any people who supported the ‘gaddhars’ (the rebellious EPR).
The furious soldiers kicked open the main door of the Nurses Hostel, where Bulbul’s parents and siblings were hiding. Without asking any question, the soldiers shot and killed three persons including Bulbul’s father Abdul Bari Howlader, hospital staffs Abdul Qaiyyum and Mohammad Salim.
The blood-thirsty soldiers broke into adjoining rooms and bursts of bullets grievously wounded Bulbul’s elder brother Mohammad Hossain Badal, and two other staff. Luckily they survived after being admitted to Rajshahi Medical College.
The staff of the hospital forcibly evacuated the shocked survivors to safer places.
After Radio Pakistan broadcast an order that all government employees and officers must return to duties, they (Bulbul’s parents and siblings) returned to the hospital on April 21 and found that their staff quarters were looted and vandalised by hooligans.
Unable to find a proper shroud to cover the dead, the hospital staff wrapped the bodies in torn bedsheets and window curtains and buried them in a mass grave in the hospital premises.
In 1997, the hospital authorities erected a boundary wall and placed an epitaph engraved in marble stone, that mentions the sacrifices of the three courageous martyrs who helped the rebellion of EPR.
Those three unsung martyrs buried in Rajshahi TB Hospital remain unrecognised by the authorities, which caused immense displeasure among the families of the martyrs.
Each year on Pahela Baishak, Bulbul and his mother Nur Jahan Begum visits Rajshahi TB Hospital and silently pray for the eternal souls of martyrs buried in a mass grave.
For fifty years Lubna and Bulbul wait for the government to recognise the sacrifices of their fathers, along with tens of thousands of unsung heroes who were martyred for an independent Bangladesh.
Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad
