Chuknagar: A sea of blood
Till this day, Rajkumari Sundari Dasi hasn't found out who her parents were, or where her relatives came from. The 1971 massacre in Chuknagar had cut off the then 6-month-old Sundari's ties with her family.
The name Sundari was given by her foster father, Mandar Das. Sundari never had a chance to know what her name was at birth. When the invading Pakistan army left after the massacre in Chuknagar, a local named Ershad Ali Mohol had gone to look for his father's body in Patkhola's beel.
He found a 6-month-old baby clinging to her dead mother in a crowd of corpses and took her home. That evening, when he handed the baby over to his friend Mandar Das, it was he who later brought her up.
Sundari is now 52 years old.
Chuknagar is a village in Atlia union under Dumuria upazila of Khulna. At the beginning of the Liberation War, the route to Chuknagar was ideal for the people of the southern region to migrate to India as refugees. Pakistani troops were still not in the area. As a result, people travelling to India as refugees crossed the border freely.
In early May, the rush of refugees seeking asylum to India began to increase in Chuknagar and adjoining areas. On May 18-19 in 1971, lakhs of refugees started gathering at Chuknagar from Bagerhat, Rampal, Kandalganj, Sharankhola, Mongla, Dakop, Batiaghata, Chawl, and even Faridpur and Barishal.
They had come to Chuknagar through the Bhadra river with the aim to rest there and then leave for India.
Ghulam Hossain was the chairman of Atlia union at that time. Seeing the influx of refugees, he informed the Pakistani camp in Satkhira on May 19. After that, the Pakistani army sent a platoon to Chuknagar.
Sirajul Islam, a witness to the Chuknagar massacre and then a student leader, told The Daily Star, "On the morning of May 20, 1971, we saw a crowd of lakhs in Chuknagar. All of a sudden, around 11:00am, a jeep and truck of the Pakistani army stopped in front of Jhautala at Maltia intersection along the Chuknagar-Satkhira Road."
"The Pakistani forces marched forward on foot and divided into three units: one unit towards Malopara-Raipara, one towards the bazar, and the other towards the banks of the river. People were trying to hide on top of trees, some in boats and others in fields of Malopara. But all of them were shot dead."
From Patkhola Beel in Chuknagar to Chadni, the temple, Football Ground, Chuknagar school, Maltia, Rayapara, Daspara, Tantipara, Bhadra and Ghangrail rivers, there were corpses everywhere that day. The waters of the Bhadra river turned into a sea of blood.
Surendranath Bairagi, a resident of Aushkhali village in Batiaghata upazila of Khulna, had five brothers. In the Chuknagar massacre, he alone survived.
He told The Daily Star, "The day before, we travelled from home. That night I was in a Thakurbari near Chuknagar. After I reached Chuknagar, everyone was cooking. Suddenly, the sound of Pakistani military firing went off."
"I ran to the river. They killed people there too. When the firing stopped, my wife came up to me and told me that none of my brothers were alive."
Freedom fighter Nitai Gayen, a resident of Dauniyfad village of Batiaghata in Khulna, lost eight members of his family in the Chuknagar massacre. Fortunately, he survived.
He told The Daily Star, "On the morning of May 20, we reached Chuknagar. We were in front of a shop. Right when we would start for the border, the shootings began."
"The Pakistani forces came from the west and north. They shot eight members of my family, including my father and uncle right in front of my eyes."
The massacre began at 11:00am and ended at 5:00pm. More than 10,000 people were killed by a platoon of Pakistani army, according to local historians.
After the massacre, since there was no way to bury all the bodies, they were immersed in the nearby Bhadra river.
ABM Shafiqul Islam, a former principal of Chuknagar College and an eyewitness to the massacre, said, "The situation can't be described in words. Around 44 people working in a jute warehouse in Chuknagar market were given the responsibility of immersing the bodies in the river. For months after the massacre, the people of the village could not use the water of the river, let alone catch fishes."
Gouranga Nandy, writer on "Liberation War History of Greater Khulna", told The Daily Star that April and May were the cruelest time of the war in Khulna. There is no other killing like this within such a short time this in war history.
But even after so many years, the memorial to remember the massacre remains incomplete. There is no shed where visitors can sit or stay during rainy days. Besides, no information was seen about the genocide spot, this correspondent noticed.
Abdul Wadud, UNO of Dumuria upazila, said, "We already completed 25 boards, which were written both in Bangla and English about the Liberation War along with the history of Chuknagar massacre."
The government bought 78 decimals of land in 2005, and a memorial was built in 2006 with a 32-decimal plot to pay homage to the people who died in the massacre. The memorial is called "Chuknagar Shaheed Smritishoudho".
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