Reflections of a grisly massacre
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Shaikh A. Hamid
THE towering trees of Peelkhana would in the past envelop a visitor with a feeling of tranquillity. Its lush green blooming fields were a feast for the eyes. It is a most unlikely site for calculated carnage, macabre massacre, and grisly mayhem.
The old trees are witnesses to the training and regimentation of countless erstwhile East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) and post-independence Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) jawans over the ages. Discipline, duty, trust, and honour are values that were drilled through their minds, flesh, and bones. They valiantly and honourably manned outposts over 4,000 kilometers of our border. They proved to be unwavering in their devotion to duty when confronted with conflict.
The BDR officers and soldiers have been unyielding against any encroachment against Bangladesh territory. They were trained to aim their guns at the enemy. When did their commanders become their enemies? How could they aim their guns at their officers, pump bullets into their bodies, bayonet dead bodies, dump some in sewages and drains, and dump most of them in mass graves? How could a disciplined force plunder and ransack the homes of brutally massacred officers, terrorise and traumatise their helpless families, torture and kill women who did no harm and posed no threat?
Does mutiny have to be so grotesque, gross, and ghastly? This is not Halaqu Khan and the Mongols raping Baghdad, Nazis dealing with extermination of Jews, or Muslims and Hindus engaged in a monstrous riot. It is human beings in the same service following the same faith with allegiance to the same country. A human being would not put even the lowliest of creatures to similar fate!
Fifty plus grievances of the jawans cannot justify such atrocious massacre.
They were ill-paid, ill-treated, ill-housed, and the offices were all corrupt (and they were all angels) so they plotted to kill many highly trained sons of the soil! What about their family members? What have they done?
Could the motive of the mass massacre be the elimination of army officers so that it would force the government to create a BCS cadre to administer BDR soldiers which in turn would allow free hand to the men to siphon pecuniary benefits at the border? It is possible. But for that mass massacre was not needed. Peaceful representation of their genuine grievances and potent and tested peaceful weapons like hunger strike would have been very effective means. Moreover, they did not exhaust all means of reaching the government. It is only the government that can redress their grievances. So what was the motive?
The magnitude of the tragedy cannot be captured just by the number of officers who perished - though that is staggering. It is also the brazen brutality that followed - on dead bodies, on helpless women and children, and the deep scar and enduring trauma they will have to live with for the rest of their lives. It is also the anguish and despair their near and dear ones will have to live with. It is also the sense of utter devastation and desolation that hundreds of their fellow officers will suffer from for the rest of their lives at their inability to come to the aid of their brethren in desperate need.
Those massacred are now far from the sufferings of this world - its misfortunes, its ordeals, its pains, its sorrows, its trials, its tribulations, its torments - far from the "pangs and sorrows of outrageous fortune". But the living will live with the torment until death.
The ordinary citizen recoils at the gruesome detail of appalling deeds, and wonder how human beings could do it - men who were tempered by rigorous training, disciplined by strict regulation, and roused by patriotism.
The ordinary citizen wonders if a government could not protect its precious military lives, how it can protect innocent citizens from thugs and miscreants!
Everybody has to die. A soldier is trained to be ever ready to die for the country. But what a death is this! One's own trusted men sprays bullet on him - men with whom he is trained to fight the common enemy. Suddenly the trusted men turn into hyenas and jump on him mercilessly with no warning and all surprise. And bayonets the dead body. Or burns it. And throws it in a mass grave. Or throws into the manhole. Is it a way to die? One of the most painful deaths is that from betrayal by trusted subordinates.
In the territory where he has been a respected and feared entity, suddenly he does not command the respect that one shows to the lowliest of human beings. Is he suddenly worse than an animal? One of the most excruciating experiences is a sudden 180 degree reversal of fortune.
The foundation of the relationship between a child and its mother is trust and caring. The basis of the relationship between a husband and a wife is trust and caring. The foundation of the relationship between a military officer and his men is trust and caring. That foundation has been badly shaken. When trust is lost, what is left?
This scribe wonders if a military commander will not feel a chill down his spine when he sees his men with loaded weapons during peaceful times.
Few places on earth have been as secure as Peelkhana has been. February 25 changed all of that. This writer wonders if officers will feel safe to command, and women and children will feel safe to shut their eyes at night in that compound. The ghost of February will haunt them for long. The booming sounds of guns and bullets will reverberate in Peelkhana for years.
The scribe wonders if the thousands of birds that made homes in the branches of the towering trees of Peelkhana and were scared away by the incessant sounds of rattling guns have returned back to their homes.
The author is a PhD and Professor of Finance/Economics, and lives in Boston, USA
THE towering trees of Peelkhana would in the past envelop a visitor with a feeling of tranquillity. Its lush green blooming fields were a feast for the eyes. It is a most unlikely site for calculated carnage, macabre massacre, and grisly mayhem.
The old trees are witnesses to the training and regimentation of countless erstwhile East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) and post-independence Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) jawans over the ages. Discipline, duty, trust, and honour are values that were drilled through their minds, flesh, and bones. They valiantly and honourably manned outposts over 4,000 kilometers of our border. They proved to be unwavering in their devotion to duty when confronted with conflict.
The BDR officers and soldiers have been unyielding against any encroachment against Bangladesh territory. They were trained to aim their guns at the enemy. When did their commanders become their enemies? How could they aim their guns at their officers, pump bullets into their bodies, bayonet dead bodies, dump some in sewages and drains, and dump most of them in mass graves? How could a disciplined force plunder and ransack the homes of brutally massacred officers, terrorise and traumatise their helpless families, torture and kill women who did no harm and posed no threat?
Does mutiny have to be so grotesque, gross, and ghastly? This is not Halaqu Khan and the Mongols raping Baghdad, Nazis dealing with extermination of Jews, or Muslims and Hindus engaged in a monstrous riot. It is human beings in the same service following the same faith with allegiance to the same country. A human being would not put even the lowliest of creatures to similar fate!
Fifty plus grievances of the jawans cannot justify such atrocious massacre.
They were ill-paid, ill-treated, ill-housed, and the offices were all corrupt (and they were all angels) so they plotted to kill many highly trained sons of the soil! What about their family members? What have they done?
Could the motive of the mass massacre be the elimination of army officers so that it would force the government to create a BCS cadre to administer BDR soldiers which in turn would allow free hand to the men to siphon pecuniary benefits at the border? It is possible. But for that mass massacre was not needed. Peaceful representation of their genuine grievances and potent and tested peaceful weapons like hunger strike would have been very effective means. Moreover, they did not exhaust all means of reaching the government. It is only the government that can redress their grievances. So what was the motive?
The magnitude of the tragedy cannot be captured just by the number of officers who perished - though that is staggering. It is also the brazen brutality that followed - on dead bodies, on helpless women and children, and the deep scar and enduring trauma they will have to live with for the rest of their lives. It is also the anguish and despair their near and dear ones will have to live with. It is also the sense of utter devastation and desolation that hundreds of their fellow officers will suffer from for the rest of their lives at their inability to come to the aid of their brethren in desperate need.
Those massacred are now far from the sufferings of this world - its misfortunes, its ordeals, its pains, its sorrows, its trials, its tribulations, its torments - far from the "pangs and sorrows of outrageous fortune". But the living will live with the torment until death.
The ordinary citizen recoils at the gruesome detail of appalling deeds, and wonder how human beings could do it - men who were tempered by rigorous training, disciplined by strict regulation, and roused by patriotism.
The ordinary citizen wonders if a government could not protect its precious military lives, how it can protect innocent citizens from thugs and miscreants!
Everybody has to die. A soldier is trained to be ever ready to die for the country. But what a death is this! One's own trusted men sprays bullet on him - men with whom he is trained to fight the common enemy. Suddenly the trusted men turn into hyenas and jump on him mercilessly with no warning and all surprise. And bayonets the dead body. Or burns it. And throws it in a mass grave. Or throws into the manhole. Is it a way to die? One of the most painful deaths is that from betrayal by trusted subordinates.
In the territory where he has been a respected and feared entity, suddenly he does not command the respect that one shows to the lowliest of human beings. Is he suddenly worse than an animal? One of the most excruciating experiences is a sudden 180 degree reversal of fortune.
The foundation of the relationship between a child and its mother is trust and caring. The basis of the relationship between a husband and a wife is trust and caring. The foundation of the relationship between a military officer and his men is trust and caring. That foundation has been badly shaken. When trust is lost, what is left?
This scribe wonders if a military commander will not feel a chill down his spine when he sees his men with loaded weapons during peaceful times.
Few places on earth have been as secure as Peelkhana has been. February 25 changed all of that. This writer wonders if officers will feel safe to command, and women and children will feel safe to shut their eyes at night in that compound. The ghost of February will haunt them for long. The booming sounds of guns and bullets will reverberate in Peelkhana for years.
The scribe wonders if the thousands of birds that made homes in the branches of the towering trees of Peelkhana and were scared away by the incessant sounds of rattling guns have returned back to their homes.
The author is a PhD and Professor of Finance/Economics, and lives in Boston, USA