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A tale of torture, deprivation

Birangana Shila Guha’s quest for the status ever elusive
MINTU DESHWARA
“I can’t pay the rent of the house in which my daughter and I live. The landlord called us and insulted us for nonpayment. Now, I don’t see any alternative to committing suicide,” Birangana Shila Guha said.
The 70-year-old war heroine now has to beg for survival.
“All these years, I have been waiting for the recognition of my sacrifice but nothing has happened so far. The prime minister assured me that I would be recognised as Birangana by December 16 last year but it has not happened till today,” she said.
She is now living with her daughter and grandson in a rented house on Jalalia Road in Moulvibazar’s Sreemangal upazila.
Talking with this correspondent, she recently recounted the harrowing experience she went through during the Liberation War.
Shila said she was 15-16 years old in 1971. At that time she was the heroine of the theatre troupe ‘Moon Light Opera’. The troupe went to Kurigram where they had been staying at Ulipur High School next to the stage. They were supposed to perform at the night when the Liberation War broke out.
According to locals, razakar Shahab Uddin of Ulipur along with his cohorts was supplying women to the Pakistani soldiers to rape.
Shila said one evening, the razakars came to Ulipur Girls’ School by a jeep with the Pak troops.
The male members of the theatre group were out then.
“At gunpoint, they picked me, Sabita and Minu to an army camp at a local bungalow. There I was tortured along with a few others,” she said.
She was raped by several army members, she added.
Day after day, Shila and other young women were raped by the Pakistani troops.
“Due to excessive torture, I would lose consciousness. The troops used to sear my skin with burning cigarettes. One day they threw me in a nearby paddy field thinking that I was dead,” Shila said.
“Next morning, local Abul Hossain and his brother Sattar found that I was breathing. They then left me in a house for treatment. But as the news spread, the army asked them to again send me to the camp. But Hossain and Sattar refused to send me there. They sent me to the house of a man named Madhu. After that I went to India with Madhu’s family,” she recollected.
Shila said after the independence of Bangladesh, she returned to her home in Kachur Hathkhola of Piyazhati in Bagerhat.
“My father Bihari Lal Saha already got the news from the locals that his daughter had been tortured by the Pak troops. Thinking of other sons and daughters, my father did not give me a place in the house,” she said.
She said with tears rolling down her cheeks, “My father who failed to save me from the criminals was the one to judge me as impure. I again joined another theatre troupe called Banasree Opera.”
Shila said a few years later, she married Jatin Guha, the driver of the troupe.
They had two daughters. But after a few years, her husband came to know about the torture. After that, her husband left her.
Later, Shila came to Sreemangal and took shelter, with the help of a relative.
Shila said after returning from India, she has worked with many troupes. She married her two daughters off with great difficulty but the younger one returned to her after being divorced.
Shila’s daughter Roma said, “My mother spoke to the prime minister in a video conference on June 20 last year at the inaugural function of the Sreemangal Ashrayan project.”
“After hearing about the hardships of my mother’s life, the PM assured us that due respect would be given to my mother but it has not happened till today. Now she is living by begging,” she added.
Contacted, Sreemangal Upazila Nirbahi Officer Nazrul Islam said the documents of Shila Guha have been sent to the authorities concerned. It is very sad that she is begging now.
“A few days ago, she came in my office; I gave her taka two thousand,” he added.