& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Palm trees and 11 war heroes

Mohammad Al-Masum Molla
Life in Kalatia was calm and relaxed basking in the breezy spring days back in 1971. And it was only natural for a quiet countryside away from the heats brewing in political circuits of Dacca (later Dhaka), the then provincial capital of East Pakistan.
For Babul, then only 18, and his peers - those were the last of their carefree Kalatia days.
Then the storm hit.
Village after village fell under the advancing Pakistani army unleashing bloodbath - people abandoned their homesteads behind and fled to safer places.
AFM Shahabuddin Babul, whose family had just moved from Kalatia to Shantibagh in the city for his college, left Dhaka on March 27 as soon as curfew was lifted after the Pakistani army crackdown on March 25.
He was a student of Jagannath College at the time. But he did not join his fleeing family. He had another plan. He trekked to Kasba at Brahmanbaria, about 100 kilometre from Dhaka, and managed to cross the border into India. There he took a short training in guerrilla warfare and returned to Kalatia in August to recruit more young men to join the war against the Pakistanis.
He gathered a band of eleven - all buddies from his school days at Kalatia High School. As night fell one day in mid-August, Babul embarked with his raw recruits for India to fight an unequal war against a highly trained professional army.
But things did not go as planned.
Babul had planned to take the same route via Kasba to India as the first time. He knew the route well. As they neared their destination, just a few kilometres from safety across the border at India, they were intercepted by a Pakistani patrol.
Accounts of the hows and wheres of their last moments vary. Their bodies were never found. Later groups of recruits tracing their footsteps to cross over to India came across descriptions of the eleven being gunned down with automatic fire or bayoneted, Babul's 90-year-old father recalls in an almost undecipherable voice.
Every December people of Kalatia, a Dhaka outskirt, recall the sacrifice of these eleven lost heroes with great reverence.
To remember them by, eleven palm trees were planted in Kalatia and a Shaheed Minar was erected in the school premise in 1982 where Babul was a student. Eleven Devdaru trees were also planted there.
The headmaster of Kalatia High School Sadek Ali along with the villagers planted the trees to remember the eleven martyrs.
The eleven martyrs are AFM Shahabuddin Babul, Nazrul Islam, Shahjahan, Shahadat Hossain, Abul Hossain Badal, Nasiruddin, Harunur Rashid Mintu, Abdus Salam Molla,
Kazi Nazimuddin, Abdul Kader and Ahsan.
Babul's father Shahjahan Ali told The Daily star, "When he returned home from India, Babul's mother requested him several times not to go to India anymore but Babul was determined. He again left in August without informing us.”
"After the end of the Liberation War, I came to know that Babul was caught by the Pakistani army at Kasba but my wife could not accept this and neither could I. I went to India several times after the war to look for information on Babul and visited many places of India and Bangladesh."
Abdul Malek Molla, brother of Abdus Salam Molla, one of the elevenman team, said Salam was a first year B.Com student at Jagannath College when the war broke out.
"One August afternoon we heard that Salam bhai was ready to go to India. At midnight, Salam Bhai told me that he was leaving and would
come back after liberating the country from the Pakistani occupiers," recalled Malek.
Malek said four of his seven brothers were freedom fighters. "My elder brother Abdul Hai Molla was Keraniganj thana BLF (Bangladesh Liberation Force) Commander. He knew that all the eleven were killed by the Pakistani forces but did not disclose it before the victory day. ”
Six other friends who left Kalatia for India the very next day were lucky. They crossed the border into India, underwent guerrilla training, and returned home to fight in the Liberation War.
Reminiscing, Babul's friend Abdul Halim said, he along with some other friends were to accompany them also but the eleven left without letting the six know they were leaving.
"I heard early in the morning Babul and others have already left at night. I then got in touch with the other five and left for India the following night,” Halim said.
Halim's companions were Shahadat Hossain, Shahnewaz Ali, Abdur Rob, Mosharraf Hossain Rumi, Fazlul Huq and Rabindranath Sarkar. "We were trained in India, returned home and fought in the war but our friends (the band of eleven) were martyred," he said.
Freedom fighter Shahnewaz recalled, "We were very close in school. We were planning to go to the Liberation War together but the eleven friends left Kalatia earlier than us. That memory of losing them still haunts us."
Begum Bedura Ali, daughter of headmaster Sadek Ali, said, "My father was a teacher at Kalatia high school for a long time. All eleven were students of my father. After the Liberation War my father planted the trees in Nazirpur Razakar Vita to remember them."
Meanwhile, eleven classrooms of Bandhan Kinder Carden in Kalatia carry the names of each of the eleven martyrs.