Seventy-nine-year-old Freedom Fighter Abdul Khaleque Alo cannot recall everything he went through during the Liberation War, but he can link his war experiences to his village, weaving his memories with glimpses of attacks and hardships.
He believes those memories will remain with him till he breathes his last breath.
Alo was a top leader of a left-wing student group in 1970. Despite holding differing political beliefs, he went to the Ramna Race Course ground to hear Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman speak on March 7, 1971.
The speech motivated him a lot.
Meanwhile, the atrocities committed under Operation Searchlight on the night of March 25 and the call for joining the struggle for freedom led him to rush to his village and gather people to fight for a just cause.
Freedom Fighter Alo reached his village in late March and started making plans to provide primary training on battlefield operations. A retired havildar, Wali Ullah Jamaddar, was the main instructor.
“We formed an All-party Student Sangram Parishad in the village and gathered over 200 youths and elderly people willing to join the fight,” Alo said.
“The training was held at a primary school in Gosairchar and it was mostly to give them a psychological boost for the fight and get them to learn about weapons,” he added.
Alo along with his companions – his younger brother Moazzem Hossain and elder brother Abdur Rouf, who trained them on first aid – was preparing to wrap up the training sessions with caution in early May.
Sudden attack on May 9
A meeting to assess the results of the training was called in mid-April.
Alo had a gut feeling that members of the local Shanti Committee had been suspicious of them.
A member of the erstwhile Shanti Committee, Khoka Chowdhury, and chairman of the area Syed Mahfuzullah reported to the Pakistani army, which charged into Gazaria on May 9, 1971.
Their target was Freedom Fighter Alo and the training centre, the local Alor Dishari school. Kalu Mia of the area had taken the Pakistani forces directly to the school.
Gazaria, Nayanagar and Gosairchar were hit the hardest and every house in those areas saw at least one death that day – except, of course, those belonging to members of the Shanti Committee.
That night, areas like Bashgaon, Sonairkandi, Nager Char, Fuldi, Kaliapur and Beltoli all came under attack.
As the military forces attacked them, the villagers asked Alo where they should hide. He advised them to rush to a nearby river island as the Pakistani army could not swim. But he had forgotten that they had come on speed boats.
As a result, they were surrounded by the military on that island and many of them were killed.
“I lost my younger brother Moazzem… five of my cousins and uncle died in the first attack. Besides, around 10 neighbours, who were our distant relatives, were also killed,” Alo said.
People only saw the results and did not consider the logic behind Alo’s suggestion, looking at it with suspicion.
“Do you know when a leader dies? When his men doubt him and his capability. I felt so anguished. But I could understand their feelings and kept quiet,” he said.
War and retribution
A little dispirited but still mentally strong, Alo went to join the Liberation War after admitting his elder brother Rouf at Dhaka Medical College Hospital on May 11.
He reached Agartala in mid-June and started his training at the Meghalar camp there, and later at Hatimara under Toffazal Hussain, before joining Sector 2 under the command of Major Haider, who would later be promoted as sector commander.
Alo was made commander of Gazaria and reached there on August 13.
“August 14 was Pakistan’s Independence Day, so I had planned to launch the first guerrilla attack on them with grenades and ruin their celebrations,” he said, adding that they had killed many of his men, relatives and raped at least eight women and girls, even in a mosque.
As it was a river-based area, the guerrillas gave the Pakistani military a tough time.
Shanti Committee member Khoka Chowdhury, brother-in-law of a freedom fighter, was stabbed to death in late November. The freedom fighters had stabbed him 83 times, Alo recalled.
Other Shanti Committee members – Shamsuddin, Shaym Chowdhuri, Gafur Chowdhury and Syed Mahfuzullah – could not be found in the area and they have been at large since then, the freedom fighter said.
Later, he was joined by many other small guerrilla teams.
Accepting defeat, over 60 military personnel surrendered at the then Gazaria police station beside the Meghna River on the afternoon of December 10.
“I hoisted the first-ever national flag in free Gazaria at the station, and when I turned back I saw not only my team members and freedom fighters, but also locals standing there to greet me,” Alo reminisced.
“I then realized I had earned freedom for Gazaria, fulfilling my dream, and also got my honour back,” he said with a proud smile on his face.