April 24, 1950. Jail authorities opened fire on political prisoners at Rajshahi Central Jail in what was then East Pakistan. Seven of them died. The martyrs are: Kamparam Singh, Bijan Sen, Shudhin Dhar, Mohammad Hanif, Dilwar Hossain, Anwar Hossain and Shukhen Bhattacharjee.
The shooting took place in the Khapra ward; those who survived were seriously injured either by bullets or by heavy beating that followed thereafter. Political prisoners scattered in other wards, too, came under severe attack, and were badly wounded.
We remember this bloody, excruciating day in its totality. It is to the collective memory of the martyrs that we pay our deepest respect. All the political prisoners who met with brutalities on this night -- we remember their revolutionary zeal and courage. At the same time we remember those early years of Bangladesh’s independence struggle when the prisons teemed with farmers, labourers, students, young men as a result of large-scale crackdown on men and women from different political parties and organisations. We remember those who, paying no heed to imprisonment and custodial torture, carried through the spirit of freedom from inequality and repression. Our salute to those courageous martyrs and prisoners.
In the four years from 1948 when the demand for Bengali as a state language began forming, to the full-blown outpouring of processions in February 1952; April 24 reminds us of a very special phase in our history. Reviving ties with warmongering imperialist forces, then West Pakistani ruling clique enforced a rule of dictatorship, silencing voices of dissent with violence. Activists engaged in the cause of freedom, whether democrats or communists, were thrown into prisons indiscriminately. Worse still, political prisoners -- both men and women -- were denied the dignity they were usually shown in those days, subjected as they were to inhuman torture. Protests against such coercive measures erupted as much on the streets of East Pakistan as inside the prison wards. The Rajshahi Central Jail saw the most brutal handling of political prisoners during the 1950 protests. But their blood was not spilled in vain. The martyrs of April 24 inspired all the progressive political struggles of the country.
(Translated by Arts & Letters Desk)Ranesh Das Gupta was a Marxist activist, critic and writer.
Sunday, March 23, 2025
