Word: dacca
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...Dacca last week, a rally held to seek the release of the imprisoned Bangladesh leader Sheik Mujibur Rahman suddenly became a public execution. Four trussed-up men who had been accused of assaulting Bengali women were brought to a public park near the Dacca Race Course, where the rally was being held. As thousands of spectators cheered, the men were tortured for more than an hour and then bayoneted to death. Other prisoners, particularly razakars, or members of the army-backed East Pakistani militia, have been summarily executed since the war ended. What distinguished the Dacca incident was the fact...
...doing their diplomatic best last week to disarm the guerrilla Mukti Bahini, who now number about 100,000. The Bengalis' desire for retaliation against their oppressors was intensified by evidence that Pakistani soldiers had committed atrocities even after it was apparent that the war had been lost. In Dacca, Indian troops discovered a mass grave containing the mutilated bodies of 125 of the 400 leading Bengali intellectuals who had been kidnaped in the last days of the war. They had apparently been killed a few hours before the Indians took control of the city. If Bengalis seek revenge...
...Awami League, which had pressed for autonomy in the East, a Bangladesh government in exile has been working from inside India. Last week its leaders flew home from Calcutta's Dum Dum Airport in an Indian air force Caribou, one of the few aircraft that could land on Dacca airport's bombed-out runway. Acting President Syed Nazrul Islam, Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed and Foreign Minister Khandikar Moshtaque were wildly welcomed by 100,000 Daccans who had flocked to the airport to meet them. One of the incoming government's first acts was to pay a call...
...great day for a soldier," beamed the Indian field commander, bush-hatted Major General Gandharv Nagra, who led the first red-bereted troops in. "For us, it's like going into Berlin." The scene at the Dacca garrison's cantonment seemed bizarre to an outsider, although it was obviously perfectly natural for professional soldiers of the subcontinent. Senior officers were warmly embracing old friends from the other side, amid snatches of overheard conversation about times and places 25 years ago. Top generals lunched together in the mess, and around general headquarters it was like an old home week...
After the surrender of Dacca, death was mixed with delight. Small pockets of Pakistani soldiers switched to civilian clothes and ran through the city of celebrants shooting at Bengalis and Mukti Bahini at random. By midday Friday most of them had been hunted down and either arrested or killed. I saw one summarily executed by three Mukti outside the U.S. Consulate General that morning, and a few minutes later the head of another Pakistani was laid on the corpse's chest. Civilians and soldiers were killed in nervous shootouts and accidents. Five died in front of the Hotel Intercontinental...