Santahar massacre was a massacre of up to 1,000 men, women and children in the railway town of Santahar, in Naogaon District of East Pakistan.[1][2]
| |
|---|---|
| Location | Santahar, Bogra, East Pakistan |
| Date | March 27 - April 17, 1971 |
| Target | Biharis and non-Bengalis |
Attack type | Ethnic cleansing |
| Weapons | Ram-daos |
| Deaths | 1,000+ killed |
| Perpetrators | Mukti Bahini |
Background
editSantahar was a railway town in Bogra District was home to about 50,000 Biharis in 1971 who lived in various neighbourhoods of the town.[3]
Eyewitness accounts state that on 26 March 1971, clashes emerged between Bengalis and Urdu-speaking inhabitants of the area.[4]
At dawn of 27 March, a contingent of the paramilitary East Pakistan Rifles, police and Ansar arrived from Naogaon Cantonment and asked the Biharis to lay down their arms.[5] However, these soldiers were actually rebels who had switched sides and joined the Mukti Bahini force.[4]
In the afternoon of the same day, 27 March, Biharis took refuge at the Jama Masjid of Chaibagan – close to the railway station –where eyewitnesses say that an armed mob entered the mosque and killed almost all the people present in its open courtyard.[4] About 60 people were massacred.[4]
April 10 - April 17
editOn 10 April, armed men attacked a factory where people had been taking refuge since 27 March were killed with machetes, swords and rods. By the evening, when the massacre of the men had been completed, the Mukti Bahini men ordered the women and children either to return to their homes or to go to the railway station.[4]
Victims allege that the Mukti Bahini men came everyday to the platform every day to ‘choose’ people to be taken to a bamboo hut of Haat Maidan. The Mukti Bahini announced that the station was to be made functional and the train service was now to be resumed.[4]
However two days later on 17 April, they began murdering all civilians.
By 17 April, the Mukti Bahini had massacred all the non-Bengali residents of Santahar.[4][6] Tahira, a survivor who hid the house of a Bengali family said:
“On the morning of 17, armed men encircled the entire Station Colony and started closing in from all directions. It was a wholesale massacre in which there was no amnesty for anyone.”[4]
Another survivor, Syed Pervez Afsar alleges that Bihari children had been killed, their bodies were dumped in the Rupsha river, while survivors were hunted down with machetes by boarding on boats.[4]
Aftermath and reactions
editOn 22 April 1971, Pakistan Army captured the Santahar railway station with the help of the local winemaker.[5]
Ishrat Ferdousi, a researcher on 1971 atrocities, said attacks on Biharis can be termed “genocide." Sarmila Bose in her book in 2011, Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War argues that Bengalis are in a state of denial about the massacre.[1]
The Bangladesh Liberation War Museum has downplayed the massacre, calling them "isolated instances of mob violence."[4]
Ezaz Ahmed Chowdhury, a Bihari community leader said:
Everyone talks about the killings of Bengalis (by the Pakistani army) in 1971. But none dares to mention the pogroms that were carried out against Biharis, We estimate that hundreds of thousands of Biharis were killed. In (northwestern) Santahar town alone, several thousand were killed in a matter of days[7]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b AFP (23 November 2011). "Bangladesh war trial sparks rival calls for justice". Dawn. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
- ^ "Controversial book accuses Bengalis of 1971 war crimes". BBC News. 16 June 2011. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
- ^ Times, Sydney H. Scranberg Special to The New York (17 March 1972). "Bengalis Ashamed Of Burst of Revenge Against the Biharis". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 8 May 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Fall of Dhaka: How Mukti Bahini 'cleansed' Santahar town of non-Bengalis". The Express Tribune. 15 December 2017. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
- ^ a b "Fall of Dhaka: Winemaker's tale of selfless love and sacrifice". The Express Tribune. 15 December 2018. Retrieved 26 April 2023.
- ^ Tubes, Urdu. B&T: B&T. Urdu-Books-Tube.
- ^ "Bangladesh war trial sparks rival calls for justice". Dawn. November 23, 2011. Retrieved November 23, 2024.