#Title

Words unsaid, wounds deep
FROM PAGE J1
“We hope the official recognition will come shortly,” said Goutam.
ATAIKULA MASSACRE
Some 70km from Rajshahi city, Ataikula is by the river Chhoto Jamuna.
In 1971, this river was the only communication to the village, where around 115 Hindu families of Paul, Sutradhar, and Saha lived.
Among them, some 15 families were affluent farmers while the others were either small farmers or potters who used to manufacture brick tiles and clay materials.
On April 25, some 150 Pakistani forces and their collaborators reached Ataikula by six boats and raided the village for eight hours starting from 9:00am.
They gathered 60 males at the house of one Jogendranath Paul.
They divided the males into two groups -- those who agreed to provide money and gold willingly, and those who were unable to give any. They opened fire on the second group first and then on the other group with light machine guns.
The 52 people shot to death were buried together near Jogendranath’s house after the army and collaborators left.
It was not possible to observe the Hindu rituals for the funeral of the dead as the houses were burned and almost everything was looted by the occupation forces.
Eight men survived, some with bullet wounds and some unhurt.
Pradyut Paul, then an SSC candidate, who lost his father, an uncle, and three brothers in the mass killing, is one of the survivors.
“I stayed low avoiding the bullets,” Pradyut said, adding he was among the group who had no money to give to the Pakistanis.
“Hundreds of bullets flew over my head. A wounded man fell over me. He asked me to remain silent,” he added.
“The place was flooded with blood and we saw blood draining into the river. The Chhoto Jamuna turned all red.”
Pradyut said the Pakistani military men were divided over the tortures and rapes.
“The attackers included Punjabis, Biharis, and those who were from Baluchistan. The Beluch ones were against rapes, torture, and robbery.”
He heard local Bangalee razakars gossiping about this divide among the Pakistani officials.
“We were here for war. But how can this be a war? Instead of fighting a war, we are torturing these simple unarmed villagers,” Pradyut quoted a Beluch officer as telling a Punjabi officer.
“The Punjabi officer then shut him up saying it was an order from the high-ups.”
Before the killing, the Pakistani military sought suggestions from their headquarters over radio.
“Ataikula is not a village, rather a town of big buildings. All dwellers here are malauns [derogatory term referring to Hindus] who have money and gold,” he quoted a Pakistani official as speaking over the radio.
The male voice from the other side ordered killing everyone, said Pradyut, who understands Urdu.
Before gathering the men for killing, the Pakistani forces kept the women confined to their homes, Pradyut said.
“We know none of our adult women were spared. Some committed suicide, others attempted to. Many died unmarried.”
The mass killing and the torture of the women of Ataikula and elsewhere moved the district’s youths, said Prof Md Shariful Islam Khan, a freedom fighter and retired government principal from neighbouring Durgapur village.
“Most youths like me in the district later left our homes to join the war to free the motherland,” he said.