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Haunted by war images

Covering the Liberation War changed a journalist's life

Shakhawat Liton
For the young TV journalist, it was an opportunity of a lifetime to cover the events of the Liberation War of Bangladesh.
Twenty-five-year-old Pramod Mathur did not have to think twice to accept the offer from Visnews, a British TV news agency.
He was hired by Prem Prakash, chief of Southeast Asia bureau of
Visnews, as a news cameraman. It was early December in 1971 when Mathur prepared for the trip to Dhaka along with a press team.
He was trained as a news cameraman by Visnews during a course in journalism in 1968-69 but he never imagined what was waiting for him.
His trip began on December 11 when the Indian army was tightening the noose slowly but surely around its final goal, Dhaka. He accompanied the bureau chief on a flight to Kolkata from Delhi. While waiting for the next leg of their journey, Pramod and Prem covered several anti-Pakistan demonstrations on the streets of Kolkata until December 13.
"Until then, there was no talk of surrender and the war was raging at full force on both fronts," Mathur reminisced in an Email interview with The Daily Star.
And then it was time.
Mathur was part of a team of about 25 Indian and international print journalists along with some photographers and TV cameramen who were taken by the Press Information Bureau from Kolkata to Bagdogra airbase in an Indian Air Force plane.
"We had to leave behind all non-essential luggages at the airbase. We were not even allowed to take our toothbrushes. We only had the clothes we were wearing. We were to move on with nothing but our shooting equipment and film rolls," he remembered.
From Bagdogra airbase, he said, an Indian army officer helped the press team to board an army vehicle to be driven into East Pakistan territory towards Dhaka.
The press team was chaperoned by a public relations officer of the Indian army.
"We were perhaps heading towards a town called Faridpur, across the international border in East Pakistan. From there, we were to cross the river Padma by boat and continue our road journey along with the Indian army marching towards Dacca [Dhaka]," Mathur said.
It was late afternoon when they reached the bank of the Padma. Little did they know what the river crossing held forthem.
A small private motorboat was arranged by the Indian army for them to cross the river and they were on their way. As the boat cut through the water in the gathering darkness, the engine of the boat quit and it began to drift without power.
"There was sheer panic among us. None of us could see the other bank of the mighty Padma river."
"Soon the sun set and darkness engulfed us. On that cold December night, other than our boat, there was nothing in sight. The sound of gunfire
from both the banks became even louder as our hearts raced faster."
The boat operator tried his best to repair the engine while the boat drifted down the river.
Some smokers in the press team lit up cigarettes to shake off nervousness. Their igniting matchsticks momentarily lit up the darkness and the red glow of their cigarettes gave away their positions. Some of the panicked journalists brought out their torches and shone the lights around hoping to find the shore.
Mathur remembered: "In the middle of a war and in the darkness of the night ... cigarette glows and beams from the torchlights on board the boat very quickly attracted gunshots aimed at us."
Nobody knew who was shooting. It could have been the Pakistanis or the Indian forces or the Mukti Bahini—it was impossible to tell.
"Though I knew how to swim, the only thought that crossed my mind in those tense moments were: how would I save the hand-cranked camera and film rolls jammed in several pockets of an army jacket that my father had given me for my journey into war-torn East Pakistan."
The shooting stopped after a while. It was perhaps because the boat drifted out of range with the flow of the river, he said.
"It is anyone's guess how many miles we drifted on the river that night."
The boat drifted all night. No one could sleep. Everyone was hungry and thirsty.
"At daybreak on December 15, we spotted and tried to stop several fishing boats. None came to our rescue. Finally, our boat could anchor at a shallow shore. Army officers got off
and engaged a large fishing boat as a replacement. Huge quantities of bananas were also brought for us by the boatman.”
From this unknown place on the banks of the river, Mathur along with the team again started their journey towards Dhaka. It was upstream this time. By afternoon, they reached a small deserted town. They explored around the town on foot while waiting for a transport vehicle of the Indian army.
No one in the press team had a clue about their location. Mathur said: "It was by chance we walked into an abandoned post office with stationery and rubber stamps lying around. We could see that we were in East Pakistan at a place called Chandpur."
Soon and Indian army truck arrived and the team resumed the journey towards Dhaka.
By that time, the negotiation for surrender had begun between the generals of the Indian and the Pakistan armies.
The Pakistan army agreed to surrender on the afternoon of December 16.
When Mathur along with the press team reached Dhaka on Decemberl6, the air was abuzz with the news.
Thousands of people were already on the streets shouting slogans, he recalled.
"I continued to shoot the scenes on the streets of Dacca. I reached a place for the martyrs and some ceremony was in progress. I shot that too."
His boss, Prem Prakash, who had stayed back at Calcutta, was to fly to Dhaka with Gen JS Aurora. In the afternoon, Prakash was already shooting the surrender ceremony between Gen AAK Niazi and Gen Aurora while Mathur was shooting the euphoric scenes on the streets of
Dhaka.
Mathur stayed at Hotel Intercontinental (now Ruposhi Bangla Hotel) which was turned into a neutral zone of the Red Cross. He stayed in Dhaka until January 11 or 12 of 1972. He continued taking footage of many events, including the mammoth rally on January 10, 1972, on the occasion of Bangabandhu's return from Pakistan.
He said all the footage was archived at the vaults of Visnews agency, which was the largest agency at that time with more than 150 TV stations, including BBC and Doordarshan in India subscribing to their service.
Mathur wanted a Pakistani army pistol as a souvenir. But he decided against it. He left the pistol behind but brought back a bayonet and an American GI helmet with him.
"I am a Kshatriya Kayastha and the bayonet is placed as a weapon for worship in my home on Dussehra every year. The helmet adorns the fireplace in my new home in the Himalayan Mountains, more than 1600km from Dhaka."
He, however, came back home with disturbing, haunting memories.
“Bloated bodies and human skeletons were a common sight during my stay in and around Dacca. These images are etched in my mind. For months after my return the stench of rotten human bodies and the smell of gunpowder stuck in my mind. It became difficult for me to eat and sleep with the images haunting my mind."
Mathur thinks his six-week stay in Dhaka and the experience of covering the Liberation War later shaped his attitude towards capturing humanity on film and video.
Pramod Mathur has devoted over 40 years to media and communications. Extensive travel to the remotest parts of India has imbued his work with sensitivity to crucial national issues and helped evolve a style of documentary presentation which is candid, true, non-intrusive and close to grass-root reality.
Visnews was a London-based international news agency. In 1993, it changed its name to Reuters Television, according to Wikipedia.