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When The Police Chose The People

We Have to Do Something’, Said the SP
One of the most extraordinary events of March 25-26, 1971 was the spontaneous decision by the police force at Rajarbagh tn Dhaka to resist Pakistan army aggression. The police normally takes orders from higher ups without much protest. In Pakistan's power structure, that meant silently obeying anything commanded by the top bureaucracy, and particularly the military.
The army's power over the political establishment and the civilian bureaucracy was not based on any legal ground (it never is), in fact, its power rested principally on vehicles with mounted guns (as always). But the army needed the police to do its dirty its work in the streets. Policemen and officers resented it, but they feared the army's superior strength 1n training, organisation and hardware.
March, 1971 changed all that dramatically. As an allconquering sense of nationalism swept through the streets of Dhaka. Bengalee policemen were caught between their obligation towards the state and their cultural and emotional bond with the people. Consciously or not, they arrived at a monumental decision: the people mere the state.
Their activity through March became placid, sometimes even co-operative with the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marching up and down Dhaka thoroughfares everyday. The Pakistanis made a note of that, and decided the police had to be dealt with in the same way as the East Bengal Regiment and East Pakistan Rides.
The police in turn made a note of that, and decided, mentally, to shed its subordinate role and not take part In any more suppression of their own people at the behest of a foreign army.
Bat It was obvious there was no grand plan of resistance To plan in advance would have been to give the game away. It would have allowed the enemy to strike In the name of putting down a rebellion and carry the force of legitimacy behind It.
In the end. the decision to resist was a spontaneous, al most reflex one. almost as if they had been psychologically conditioned by the force oi events to do just that.
Nawajezh All Khan, now retired. was a Deputy Superintendent tn charge of East Pakistan Police Reserves (EP PR) at Rajarbagh at the time. In a conversation with The Daily Star, he rummaged through his memory bank to see what scraps of information were still there:
"Around 9pm of the 25th. I got a call from the comman dant of EPPR. Mr. Hablbur Rahman. I had Just sat down to dinner after a long day out on duty. He calmly asked me If I had had my dinner, then he said. Just get hold of a car and come straight over to the SP's place'. There was urgency In his words.
"At Superintendent E. A. Chowdhury's house, there were, apart from my commandant, Additional SP Mr. Shahjahan, district commissioner — his name escapes me right now. as docs the name of the reserve inspector of Rajarbagh lines who was also there.
"Without much ado. SP Chowdhury told us the army was going for a showdown that night. We have to do something', he said. The senior officers present decided we should go back to the line and issue arms and ammunition to the men Immediately. But secrecy was to be maintained. They were to be told that there was great emergency in the country and they were to stand-by. The reason for secrecy at that stage was the presence of Punjabi and Bihari policemen at Rajarbagh. It was decided that the Bengalee officers were to be briefed In secret, and told to resist any Pakistani attack on Rajarbagh.
"Earlier, Tejgaon police station was told to keep an eye on army movements in and out of the cantonment. Also police Special Branch officers were actively watching inside the garrison area. By 9:30pm, oalls had begun to come in to the SP's house about large scale movement. Tejgaon reported that around 300 trucks and vehicles were moving out towards the city. Special Branch officers from the city reported troops assembling at the Race Course Ground. By then, we had definite information that the Pakistanis were going to launch their attack at zero hour. March 26. There was no time to lose.
"So we went back to the line and assembled the men. There were about 350 of them there at the time, as many were still out on duty. Because of the presence of non Bengalees among the ranks and officers, we gave them a general lecture. Then the Bengalee habildar-major, force subedar and armoury subedar were detailed in secret. They were told to inform the men that the army was coming, and that we were going to fight. If they found themselves overwhelmed. then they were to scatter and join East Bengal Regiment,EPR and other forces to carry on the fight.
"There was frantic activity going on outside at the time, with people erecting barricades in the streets with whatever they found, chopped trees, over-turned cars, anything.
"The army must have left their assembly point earlier than our information suggested because they launched their attack six or seven minutes before midnight. Pakistani troops took up positions at Shahjahanpur crossing and Mallbagh crossing. The Bengalee policemen returned fire with their light machine guns, grenades, rilles etc. By then one of our ranks had also raised the green, red and yellow flag of Bangladesh atop the barracks. It kept flying right through the morning of the 26th.
"I went to shift my family after issuing arms to the men and de-briefing the Bengalee officers. I was stuck with my kids as the battle erupted In full fury. The Pakistanis were more heavily armed, as would be expected of a regular army, but our boys fought on bravely. The exchange of fire was very heavy for several hours. One Punjabi police officer was killed by our men, after which the rest of the non-Bengalees kept quiet.
"Around 4api, the Pakistanis brought on tanks and armoured cars. They shelled the barracks with incendiary bombs, the main
administrative building took two direct hits from rocket launchers. Faced with heavy armour which they could not resist with their Ifght weapons, the Bengalee men and officers began making their way out of the barracks at around five".
Some took up positions on rooftops in nearby areas such as Chamelfbagh and Shahjahanpur. and kept up the resistance throughout the day. The Pakistani tanks had smashed through the perimeter fences, but their victory was a hollow one. Many policemen Joined the Muktl Bahini, and some could not. But even while the Rajarbagh police line barracks burned in the morning of March 26. 1971, the flag of Bangladesh was still flying.