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Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendro and Bangladesh's Declaration of Independence

Mashuqur Rahman and Mahbubur Rahman Jalal
THE last message from Dacca Betar Kendro was delivered by announcer Nazma Akhtar.
She declared:
"The 75 million people of Bangla Desh, freedom-loving as they are, have been subjected to brutal genocide by the army. The people of Bangla Desh will shed more blood rather than forget the injury. We will never allow the sacrifice to go in vain."
Soon after the Pakistan army took over Dacca Betar Kendro in the early hours of March 26,1971 The Pakistanis renamed the radio station "Radio Pakistan Dacca" and used it to announce martial
law orders. The Pakistan army's attempt at silencing the voice of the Bengalis had begun. Bengalis, however, fought back. The war of Bangladesh's Liberation had begun.
On the evening of that same day a small radio station started broadcasting defiantly in the face of the Pakistan military's bloody onslaught on the Bengalis. The clandestine radio station, located in Kalurghat, north of the city of Chittagong, declared to the world: "The Sheikh has declared the 75 million people of East Pakistan as citizens of the sovereign independent Bangla Desh." The station called itself Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendro.
For the next four days the radio
station engaged in a propaganda battle with the Pakistan army. While the Pakistan army claimed all was calm in Bangladesh, the clandestine radio station declared liberation forces were marching on the capital and Pakistani soldiers were surrendering. While the Pakistan army claimed it had crushed the will of the Bengalis, the clandestine radio station declared that the Pakistani military governor General Tikka Khan had been assassinated. While the Pakistan army claimed the Bengalis had been defeated, the clandestine radio station claimed to have formed a provisional government ofBangladesh.
In those early days of the geno-
cide Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendro declared to die world that Bengalis would not give up, that Bengalis would fight, and that the sacrifice
would not go In vain And the world listened. The small radio station in Kalurghat In those five crucial days in March refused to be
silenced. It rallied the morale of the Bengalis and it frustrated the Pakistani army.
The men and women of Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendro and the men of the East Bengal Regiment who defended the station from attack, and announced to the world that an organised Bengali resistance was fighting back, ensured that Pakistani tanks and airplanes could not silence the voice of the 75 million people of Bangladesh.
For the full version of this article, please read this month's Forum, available with The Daily Star on Monday. March 3.)
Mahbubur Rahman Jalal is an archivist of
Bangladesh Liberation War documents