Septuagenarian Ismail Bepari, who has a tea stall in Alubdi village on the northern fringe of Dhaka’s Pallabi, is known in the area for his rudeness. But the villagers also know that Ismail’s insolence is due to the trauma he has been living with for over 42 years – since Pakistani forces killed at least 350 innocent people of the village on a single day with the help of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Molla.
On that day, Ismail lost his brother Ibrahim Bepari, who practically used to maintain their whole family. He was also among those ill-fated people but survived the massacre like a few others.
Ismail was angry when the International Crimes Tribunal handed Quader Molla life imprisonment for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War. But he could not be happy Tuesday either, when the Supreme Court sentenced Quader to death.
The death penalty could not satisfy several others living in Alubdi village.
“What is the meaning of justice after so many years?” said another elder resident of the village who had also survived the massacre but lost dear ones.
On that fateful day in April 1971, thousands of Pakistani forces encircled the village and killed hundreds of civilians, including women and children, assembling them in an open space used as a threshing ground.
Local collaborators, including Akter from Bihar, had kept Alubdi village terrorised for a several days after the war started.
The villagers said the pogrom had taken place in Baishakh of the Bangla calendar when they had been busy reaping paddy.
“One day a few Bangalis made an announcement, asking the locals to gather in the field the next day, assuring them that no harm would be done to them. All villagers converged there because they trusted the announcement made by Bangalis,” Ismail told the Dhaka Tribune.
“We saw thousands of [Pakistani forces] surrounding us and a helicopter hovering overhead. The mountain-like soldiers started spraying bullets on us as a red flag was shown from the helicopter,” he said sitting at his tea stall, which is now located on the field where the massacre had taken place. The villagers started running for life. Ismail snuck into a nearby paddy field and finally reached Birulia, an area which did not have any road connectivity at that time.
“If I get any one of [the collaborators], I would hack him to death. I have ever since nurtured this dream. I cannot forget the bloodbath,” Ismail said.
Ismail’s only son Liton, 30, said: “He cannot talk decently. I have always seen him this way.”
Haji Harun Madbar, 55, was only 12 years old in 1971. He also survived the horror but lost his father Mafiz Uddin, brother Nayon Mia and two uncles in the massacre.
“The senior people here cannot forget the horror of that day and the obliviousness of subsequent governments,” he said.
“How I can forget the memory of people moving on each other like popcorn? The bullets were more in number than raindrops...” Harun recalled that his mother could not eat for days.
“I lost everything. But no leader ever helped me. Only Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave me Tk2,000,” he said.
It took 42 years for the crimes committed on that day to be tried.
The Alubdi massacre was listed as charge number five among nine charges levelled against Abdul Quader Molla, also known as the “Butcher of Mirpur.”
According to the charge, in the early morning of April 24, members of the Pakistan occupation force and around 50 non-Bangalis, in the presence of Quader Molla, raided Alubdi village and attacked unarmed villagers, killing 344 people.
Quader Molla and his gang attacked and indiscriminately shot at people of two villages. Among them, 24 persons were named in the charge.
Molla was found guilty in the Alubdi killings, earning him a life sentence at the International Crimes Tribunal, and the verdict was upheld on Tuesday by the Supreme Court.
But the verdict meant little to people like Rabi Bepari, whose hopes for justice had faded after years of negligence and impunity.
Rabi lost his brother Rustam Bepari, two nephews and two paternal uncles on that day, is also aggressive in his attitude.
“What is the meaning of doing justice after so many years? [Collaborator] Akter died naturally. Can you try him for the crimes?” said Rabi, who is now in his 70s.
“Neither Khaleda Zia nor Sheikh Hasina inquired how we the people of Alubdi have survived,” said Harun Madbar, echoing Ismail Bepari.
Ismail said Quader Molla was a butcher in Mirpur and had set up a concentration camp near Mirpur 6.
“[After victory in the war] we found thousands of pairs of shoes of different sizes, skulls, corpses of women and children. We can never forget the atrocities done to us,” he said.
“Why do [war criminals] enjoy the rights to appeal? This is a mockery. All of them must be executed right now,” muttered a son of another victim, watching news on Quader Molla’s death sentence on TV.
