Liberation War,1971_15

After 41 years of Liberation war of Bangladesh, as the time went by, we all recall the memories of the people, those who sacrificed their life for the country and also for those who were tortured and went through Physical violence.

When I was 10 years old, I heard stories of the Liberation war from my relatives .My father was a Freedom Fighter, people from different places used to visit him and request him to narrate the stories of the war. When ever I got any chance, I also joined the crowd and listen to the stories.

The Stories were so touchy, that it made a serious Impact on me. In my leisure time I used to portray the picture of the war in my mind. There was sadness in me, for not being there during the war and fight against the Pakistani army. I wished that I would also contribute some thing for my country during the war. There is emptiness inside me, which I feel each and every moment.

During the starting of my photojournalism, I had a dream to make a book on the photo story of liberation war. I guess by doing this the guiltiness inside me is going to fade.

The new generation of our time does not know the history and life during the war. By the photo story based on the war, it is my aim to let the young youths know about our past.

As the Bangladesh liberation war took place before my birth so I had to collect all the pictures through dramatization. For which, I had to rent character casting, sets, props and arms. The most interesting thing is that, just for collecting the stuffs I had to drop my job as photo journalist and missed a year in my class.

The first step that I took during making this story there is taking interviews of the freedom fighters those who were still alive. But when I started the interview and listen to the stories from few of the freedom fighters, I noticed that they all have the common stories.
So after that I collected all the information from the historical books as reference. As, it is a historical story I tired to made the story without missing any point.

On March 25 the genocide was launched. The university in Dacca (Dhaka) was attacked and students exterminated in their hundreds. Death squads roamed the streets of Dhaka, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. It was only the beginning. “Within a week, half the population of Dhaka had fled, and at least 30,000 people had been killed. Chittagong, too, had lost half its population. All over East Pakistan people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April some thirty million people were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military.

The proportion of men versus women murdered is impossible to ascertain, but a speculation might be attempted. If we take the highest estimates for both women raped and Bengalis killed (400,000 and 3 million, respectively); if we accept that half as many women were killed as were raped; and if we double that number for murdered children of both sexes (total: 600,000), we are still left with a death-toll that is 80 percent adult male (2.4 million out of 3 million). Any such disproportion, which is almost certainly on the low side, would qualify Bangladesh as one of the worst gendercides against men in the last half-millennium.

On December 16, after a final genocidal outburst, the Pakistani regime agreed to an unconditional surrender. Awami leader Sheikh Mujib was released from detention and returned to a hero's welcome in Dacca on January 10, 1972, establishing Bangladesh's first independent parliament.
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