ON LIBERTY ROAD

Source: PHOTO: DARSHAN CHAKMA

Dr. Atia Jehan was a third year medical student in Lahore in 1971, when the war broke out. She was stranded in Pakistan after liberation, and crossed the border into Afghanistan by hiding in a smuggler's truck. She finally reached Bangladesh through India.
When we meet Dr. Atia Jehan at her house, it seemed like she had been waiting all these years to tell her story. We were suddenly carried back four decades into the past, to the November of 1971, when she was a student at Fatema Jinnah Medical College in Lahore. Pakistan and India were on the verge of war and Atia had no idea of the great turmoil that lay ahead for her.
From March onwards, news of the political situation in then East Pakistan had reached the dormitory, though relationships between the twelve Bengali students and the Punjabi, Pashtun and Pathan students remained amiable. But with the approach of November, the air had started to get chilly. Trenches had been dug all around the dormitory, now that India was actively entering the war. Air raids were expected any time.
Atia was restless all the time. She walked in the evenings with a headphone and tried to listen to the Lahore radio. For this, the other students started suspecting that she was a spy. “Daughters of many important officials used to study with me. General Tikka Khan's daughter was a student at my college, and towards the end of November, some of the students had lost fathers, uncles and brothers in Bangladesh. They were being hostile towards us, and we started exchanging harsh words,” said Atia.
 

One day in the middle of a heated argument, Atia mistakenly shouted out “Joy Bangla! Crash Punjab!” Sentiments were struck, and that was the start of a long and arduous journey for the Bengali students studying there. Later that night, some of her friends told her to quickly leave her dorm, because the other girls were coming for her, with daggers, blades and even a pistol. She escaped in time and took shelter in the superintendent's office. Soon, six of the twelve Bangladeshis who had opted for Bangladesh and were on hostile terms with the Pakistanis were moved from Warri Road into an abandoned dormitory on Hall Road, away from the main college. They were not allowed to attend classes and they had to make their own food arrangements. They had no money and no extra clothes.
“Soon, we were relocated to the houses of Bangladeshi families who were serving in the Pakistan army, in the cantonment area. From there we contacted our relatives living in different districts of Pakistan, and decided to move in with them. I went to Karachi where my uncle's family lived. A depressing year passed by, and the only contact we had with our families was through Red Cross. We scribbled notes which they used to telex to our families in Dhaka.
“Meanwhile, my brother Tariq Ali, who had been a freedom fighter travelling with the Bangladesh Mukti Shangrami Shilpi Shangstha, returned to Dhaka from Kolkata. He sent me a handsome amount of cash. Under his incentive, I decided to undertake the hazardous journey and escape from Karachi to Kabul to avoid the transit camps that were being set up,” continued Atia.
Even though her uncle objected to her taking this risk, she found some Bangladeshis with similar plans and they contacted a group of Pathan smugglers who had started trafficking Bangladeshis across the border on the side. They charged a hefty sum of money, around 700 rupees.
“On January 13, 1973, I sneaked out through the back door and disappeared into the darkness. A taxi cab waited to take me to a deserted area behind the Central Jail. There were four of us in the taxi cab.”
They were taken to a place where a convoy of lorries stood waiting. There were only thorny shrubs for miles all around.
“We climbed into the back of the lorries with a ladder. One could hardly sit straight and we were sandwiched between stacks of cotton above and scattered belongings below. Some women stitched their flattened gold ornaments into their saris. I stitched extra money to my pajamas, and carried cyanide in my pocket, in case I faced assault.”
 

The lorry continued to pick up passengers along the way, and soon there were 53 men, women and children cramped inside the hiding space. At one point, police cars started chasing the lorry around the city. All night, the lorry circled the roads of the city, trying to shake off the police cars, hiding in garages until the cars left. Towards dawn, they were on the highway.
“We continued our journey until disaster struck. Suddenly our lorry started gliding downwards, and then it halted with a tremendous sound. We were informed that the front axle had broken and we would have to wait until another rescue car arrived. Hours passed by with us huddled inside. Though it was freezing outside, we were sweating out of worry. People were vomiting because of lack of oxygen and babies started crying. Outside, the Pathans started beating the axle plates with hammers to drown the noise of the babies crying.”
At last the rescue lorry arrived, and the passengers got only ten minutes to jump from one lorry into another, to avoid being caught by the highway police. In the hurry, they left all their warm clothes and valuables behind, though the only thing Atia regrets leaving behind was a book of short stories that her friend had given her to be published in the liberated Bangladesh.
After travelling for two nights and one day, Atia and the rest of the passengers reached the no-man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan. There, the smugglers had dug large underground caves which served as their hideout.
Finally, after haggling over due fare with the Pathans, they boarded a bus to Kandahar.
“In Kandahar, we reported to the Indian Consulate to get ID cards and travel passes from Kandahar to Kabul. It was snowing in Kabul, and we were wearing tattered clothes and shoes. We reached Kabul and reported to the Indian High Commission, and they gave us food and lodgings until January 26, when a chartered flight with a capacity of 300 arrived to take us to Delhi,” said Atia.
Atia stared down from the plane as it flew over Lahore, the place of all her misfortunes. In Delhi, they were given a hundred rupees for their journey to Kolkata, which started on the 31st by train. After getting off at Howrah station, Atia boarded a bus to Benapole, from where she crossed into Jessore of Bangladesh on the 1st of February.
“I was jubilant, and I couldn't wait to see my family. We spent the night at a relative's house and bought plane tickets to Dhaka the next day.”
For Atia, freedom came late. It was only as she entered Bangladesh in 1973 that she felt the true taste of freedom.