1971: THE BATTLE OF KUSHTIA
One little town showed how to fight back
An eerie silence settled over the streets of Kushtia in the early hours of March 30, 1971, as a curfew, imposed by the occupying Pakistan army, was in place.
Thousands of Bangalees, divided in three groups, were quietly creeping towards the police lines, Wireless Centre and Zilla School, where marauding Pakistani forces had set up their camps five days ago.
As the clock struck 4:00am, the three groups broke the silence by opening fire, as several thousand others, in unison, shouted "Joy Bangla" at the top of their lungs.
"Opening fire and simultaneously chanting the slogan at our loudest confused the Pakistan army about how many of us were actually attacking them," remembered Mesbah Ul Haq, who took part in the battle.
Bangalee forces were shouting slogans from different corners. When one group stopped, the other started. It completely perplexed the Pakistanis, he said.
After his capture, Pakistani army Naik Subhedar (senior sergeant) Mohammad Ayub had said, "We were very surprised."
"We thought the Bengali forces were about the size of one of our companies. We didn't know everybody was against us," he told TIME Correspondent Dan Coggins in a report titled "Battle of Kushtia" published on April 19, 1971.
About 150 to 200 Pakistani army men of the Baloch Regiment, led by Major Shoeb, took control of Kushtia on the night of March 25, when they launched a barbaric crackdown on the freedom-loving Bangalees and began carrying out genocide across the country.
They disarmed some Bangalee policemen at the police lines and then occupied key points, including government offices and institutions.
At the pre-dawn of March 30, Bangladeshi forces, comprising the East Pakistan Rifles (EPR), police officials and civilians, attacked the occupation army.
"As planned, we launched the sudden attack from three directions. The enemy's morale seemed to have been broken by the thunderous slogans being chanted by the people and the simultaneous firing," said Lt Col (retd) Abu Osman Chowdhury, who was a major and commander of the fourth wing of Chuadanga EPR and a frontline fighter.
In the book "Sommukhjuddho 1971: Muktijoddhader Kolome", he wrote that after hours of fierce battling, the Bangladeshi troops entered the police lines and wireless centres and began searching for enemies, who, without finding any alternative, threw down their weapons and fled towards the Kushtia Zilla School headquarters. Many of them were killed trying to flee.
Osman later became Sector-8 commander and remained so till August 1971.
US-based filmmaker Anindo Atik's documentary titled "The Battle of Kushtia" showed how by the evening of March 30, the Bangladeshi forces surrounded the Pakistani army at the school headquarters.
The battle continued till night, when the enemies contacted Jashore cantonment seeking additional troops. The response they received was, "Reinforcement [is] not possible. Try to live on your own."
Rafiqul Alam Tuku, a freedom fighter who took part in the battle, said the enemy forces continued heavy shelling till the next morning, adding that the Bangalees fought back valiantly and could sense victory approaching.
After heavy fighting throughout March 31, the Pakistanis faced significant casualties, but about 40-45 of them, including most of their officers, were still alive.
Sensing defeat, they tried to escape that night. They got on two jeeps and a Dodge car, and left towards Jhenaidah at high speed.
But the Bangalees were right behind, Rafiqul added.
A group of freedom fighters had already destroyed the Shailkupa Bridge. They created a trap by covering the vacuum with a coarse mat made from bamboo remains and camouflaged the place to look like a bitumen-sealed road. On each side of it, two groups of Bangalees waited for the fleeing Pakistanis.
As soon as the speeding vehicles fell into the trap, the freedom fighters launched their attack and killed Major Shoeb and several others on the spot.
The remaining Pakistani soldiers, some of whom were injured, fled to nearby areas. However, they could not escape the wrath of the villagers in those places, said freedom fighter Musharof Hossain, adding that the Pakistanis ultimately surrendered to them.
... They [the Pakistanis] got the message – Bangladesh is unbeatable. I am proud I was a part of that battle.
By April 1, the Bangladeshi forces achieved victory and freed Kushtia from the grips of occupation. However, on April 17, the Pakistani army had managed to recapture the area.
While almost all Pakistani soldiers died in the battle, six Bangalees embraced martyrdom.
"It was an unprecedented win. It was a war between .303 rifles versus automatic weapons. It was only possible for the all-out support by the locals of Kushtia," Osman said in the documentary.
He said they had recovered weapons and ammunition that filled a three-tonne truck.
HOW PLANNING LED TO VICTORY
The preparations for the battle to free Kushtia started from March 26, said Mesbah Ul Haq.
Upon learning that a military crackdown was taking place in Dhaka, Mesbah's father Ashab Ul Haq, then a Chuadanga-1 member of Provincial Assembly (MPA), and Younus Ali, a Chuadanga-2 MPA, held a rally in the town that morning and called for resistance.
Osman fled from Kushtia town the same morning upon seeing Pakistan army men there. He reached the EPR office in Chuadanga in the afternoon and came to know that Bangalees had disarmed all Pakistani EPR members and took control of their weapons.
On March 27, Ashab and Osman chalked out the plan to free Kushtia. They named the area "South-Western Command".
The weapons confiscated from the EPR members were .303 rifles, .303 LMGs, which were used in World War II, and four rusted World War II time 3.5 rocket launchers, also from the time of WW II. Ammunition was absolutely insufficient.
"But I had hope because I knew the common people from all walks of life were with me," Osman wrote in his book.
Members of police, ansar and mujahid were inducted into the force after a day's training, while the people of Kushtia, with their indomitable will, joined in.
As thousands came forward, they had with them dry food, supply of rice and lentils from their own fields and whatever weapon they could find.
Several control rooms were established. Mega kitchens were set up to provide hot meals to the frontline fighters.
By March 28 noon, a group of Bangalees went to Jhenaidah and blocked the Jashore-Jhenaidah road to bar the enemies from supplying troops or arms to Kushtia from Jashore.
The initial plan was to launch the attack early March 29. However, as some people did not reach on time, the attack was pushed back by 24 hours and was finally launched at 4:00am the next day.
Major Osman had bet on three factors; a surprise attack, depriving the enemy of any intelligence about them, and a siege laid by tens of thousands of volunteers armed with shotguns, machetes and bamboo sticks to deceive and overwhelm the enemy, wrote Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, the then sub-divisional officer of Kushtia's Meherpur, in his book "Chariot of Life: Liberation War, Politics and Sojourn in Jail".
Anindo Atik said the victory in Kushtia was significant as it came at a time when most of the major cities, including Dhaka, was captured by the Pakistani forces.
Speaking to this newspaper, he said, "Barrister M Amir-Ul Islam told me the victory helped boost the morale of the public and even became a tool for them to negotiate with the Indian government."
Mesbah said the victory was a milestone in the history of the Liberation War. "It came within five days of the Pakistan army's crackdown. They got the message – Bangladesh is unbeatable. I am proud I was a part of that battle."