Spotlight

Being a daughter of a freedom fighter

Taslima Rawshan Tinni

MY father A.Z.M.Shafiqul Islam participated in the war of liberation in 1971 as a freedom fighter like many others to free our homeland from the occupation of the Pakistani army. The dreadful war continued for long nine months from March, 1971 and continued up to December till final victory was achieved on 16th December through the surrender of the Pakistan army. The surrender took place in the racecourse maidan of Dhaka, which is now known as Suhrawardy Uddyan. My father along with his family members left Dhaka after the crackdown and reached his village home at Bhairab on foot and partly by boat through the river Meghna. In March 1971 while in Dhaka, he was one of the organizers of the movement in PIA Dhaka office since he was serving in that organization.

In the early days of the liberation period, he along with others organized the local youths to prepare themselves to fight out the occupation forces and to free Bangladesh from their clutches. As the Pakistan army proceeded and ravaged the interior part of Bhairab, my father made up his mind to cross the border and ultimately he made it through the Kasba border of Brahmanbaria district and reached Agartola. He stayed there for some days and went to Dehradun for training. On completion of training he returned to Agartola again and came back to Bhairab area with other trained freedom fighters through the Shingerbeel route of Brahmanbaria.

A very dangerous occurrence took place while they were coming back. Their entire group of freedom fighters was trapped near Majlishpur, Brahmanbaria in an ambush laid by the Pakistan army where Ashu Ranjan of Bhairab and others were caught, brutally tortured and subsequently killed at Brahmanbaria. After this incident, they regrouped and came to the village home Jagamohanpur of Bhairab from where they engaged themselves to the cause of Liberation war.

16th December, 'the Victory Day,' is a very remarkable day in the history of our nation, which we observe with a desire to see our country free from hunger, poverty and social discrimination. We also take oath on the day to make our country economically free and prosperous. I take a pride in being a daughter of a freedom fighter. I give salutation to all the freedom fighters who are alive and others who sacrificed their lives as well. We remember them with gratitude for they gave us a free, sovereign and independent motherland.

As I am grown up today, I have come to know how much the freedom fighters matter for us and what amount of sacrifice they have made to make us able to stay in an independent country and to lead a secure life as an independent nation. I wish to extend my standing ovation for them whose parents and relatives sacrificed their lives for the noble cause of liberation war. At the same time I express my deep sorrows for those freedom fighters who are passing their lives in hardship, misery and acute poverty.

As a contributor of the daily star's weekly magazine, Star Campus, I appreciate the initiative taken by the magazine by publishing a special issue focusing only on freedom fighters on this Victory day. The write up has been prepared on the basis of conversation with my father. I extend my thanks for his kind cooperation.

(Student of MBA, Dept. of Accounting & Information Systems, University of Dhaka)