Destination: Mirpur Mass Graves - Nazrul Bari

Both of my friends were directly involved in the liberation war. Naser advised me to be more careful the next few days as some big operations were to begin soon. We were cut short in our discussion as someone came and informed us that a curfew had been declared from 6 P.M. I decided to start for home immediately. I had to reach home by any means before the curfew. Santu kept urging me to stay the night, “I'll telephone your home and inform them.” he said.

But somehow I just didn’t listen to him. When I left Azimpur Colony and rushed to the main road it was 5:30 already. There were very few rickshaws on the street. The two or three that were available, were rushing towards their own destinations. No one wished to go around the Dhanmondi area. I didn't think it safe to be standing there and started walking towards the New Market fast... I was not walking actually, but rather running. Heavily perspiring I reached the place where the Bazaar of the New Market was situated, but with no luck, no rickshaws or buses were there either. It was nearly a quarter to six by then.

And right in front of the Bazaar, just near some other passersby like me were standing a group of Pak militia and some Razakars. I was thinking it would have been better had I stayed with Santu and Naser. But it wasn't possible to go back then. In the meantime a few local buses passed us. The Razakars and the Militia wouldn't let us get on them. After a while came another bus. We finally got on that one as they didn't resist much. But it was already past 6 P.M. yet the bus won't leave. I was breathing heavily. I noticed there were 4/5 Pak soldiers and several Razakars seating at the back of the bus. They had rifles.

At last the bus started. There was a Jeep and a truck carrying Pak soldiers at the petrol pump near Road-3 of Dhanmondi. The driver stopped when the bus got near them. The bus-driver and bus-conductor were both Non-Bengalis. A soldier got down from the Jeep and spoke with the driver. Then the Jeep and the truck left via Green Road. In those days the bus stoppages after the New Market were as follows – Science Laboratory, Road No. 5, Kalabagan Staff Quarters, Sukrabad, Sobhanbag, Asad Gate, and son on – upto Mirpur.

All the roads were deserted, not a single person was to be sighted anywhere. The bus crossed the stoppage of Road No. 5 and kept moving towards the Kalabagan Staff Quarters at a high speed. It was not stopping at any of the stoppages. The Bengali passengers for Road No. 5 and Kalabagan stoppages were yelling at the driver, “Rokho! Stop!”

The driver or the conductor didn't care. I shivered at a sudden thought, “What if something bad was to happen? What had the driver and the Pakistani army talked about?”
I was standing near the door of the bus, on the foothold of the door, holding the handles. As soon as I moved, a young non-Bengali Razakar pulled me in by my arm and said, “Bustards, Mirpur chaalo, we will make Chapali Kebab out of you Bengalis.”

I suddenly grasped the inner meaning behind his words - the bus won't be stopping anywhere, and wherever it would, that would be the end of my heartbeats forever. Neither me nor any of the other Bengali passengers were ever to return by that same route. I was facing certain death. They were taking us some place where my body will be criss-crossed with machine-gun bullets, then it will be either burned or buried somewhere. No one will ever know, my parents will never know where the murderers had taken their dear son Joglu, or how mercilessly they killed him. All these thoughts crossed my mind in the flash of a moment. The bus was crossing Dhanmondi 32 where I lived right then. I suddenly noticed my parents and my younger siblings standing on the first floor veranda of our house with my two aunts and the husband of my youngest aunt. They were looking at the streets and from their restless waving of hands it seemed as if they had spotted me on the bus.

I decided in that split second, there was no point dying like a dog, weaponless in the hands of these kidnappers. With a deliberate shake I freed my arm from that young Razakar and jumped from the moving bus. With a flip I rolled away quite a distance. My shirt and pants were torn, flesh was hanging out from the gush on the right side of the body and I was bleeding heavily. There were large pipes of Titas Gas company by the road, I jumped over those and managed to reach the house beyond them. The servant of that house had taken me to my house afterwards.

I later learned that none of the Bengalis in that bus could escape alive. They had lined up everyone from that bus under the Mirpur Bridge and then brush-fired.

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