In 1971, the Pakistan Army and their local collaborators, most notably far-right militia group Al-Badr, engaged in the genocidal massacre of Bengali intellectuals during the Bangladesh War of 1971. Bengali intellectuals were abducted, tortured, and killed during the entire duration of the war as part of the Bangladesh genocide. However, the largest number of systematic executions took place on 25 March and 14 December 1971, two dates that bookend the conflict. 14 December is commemorated in Bangladesh as Martyred Intellectuals Day.
Black Night of 25 March
On 25 March 1971, the Pakistan army launched an extermination campaign, codenamed Operation Searchlight, against the Bengali people in East Pakistan. A number of professors, physicians, and journalists were abducted from their homes by armed Pakistani soldiers and their local collaborators, and executed during this operation and its aftermath.
14 December executions
As the war neared its end and Pakistani surrender became apparent, the Pakistan Army made a final effort to eliminate the intelligentsia of the new nation of Bangladesh. On 14 December 1971, over 200 Bengali intellectuals, including professors, journalists, doctors, artists, engineers, and writers, were abducted from their homes in Dhaka by the Al-Badr militia and the Pakistan Army. Novelist Shahidullah Kaiser and playwright Munier Choudhury were among the victims. They were taken blindfolded to torture cells in Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Nakhalpara, Rajarbagh, and other locations in different parts of the city. Later they were executed en masse, most notably at Rayerbazar and Mirpur. In memory of the martyred intellectuals, 14 December is mourned in Bangladesh as Shaheed Buddhijibi Dibosh, or Day of the Martyred Intellectuals.
After the independence of Bangladesh, a list of Bengali intellectuals was discovered on a page of Major General Rao Farman Ali's diary left behind at the Governor's House. The existence of such a list was confirmed by Ali himself, although he denied the motive of genocide. The same was also confirmed by Altaf Gauhar, a former Pakistani bureaucrat. He mentioned an incident in which Gauhar asked Ali to remove a friend's name from the list, and Ali did so in his presence.
Notable victims
Many notable intellectuals who were killed from 25 March to 16 December 1971 in different parts of the country include:
- Abul Fazal Ziaur Rahman (physician)
- ABM Nurul Alam (physician)
- A. B. M. Abdur Rahim (labor union leader)
- AFM Alim Chowdhury (ophthalmologist)
- Ataur Rahman Khan Khadim (physicist)
- Atiqur Rahman (doctor)
- Azharul Haque (doctor)
- AKM Asadul Haq (doctor)
- Altaf Mahmud (lyricist and musician)
- ANM Golam Mostafa (journalist)
- ANM Muniruzzaman (statistician)
- Anwar Pasha (Bengali litterateur)
- Ayesha Bedora Choudhury
- Syed Nazmul Haque (journalist)
- Dhirendranath Datta (lawyer and politician)
- Faizul Mahi (educator)
- Fazlur Rahman Khan (geologist)
- Govinda Chandra Dev (philosophy)
- Ghyasuddin Ahmed (educator)
- Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta (scholar of English literature)
- Anudvaipayan Bhattacharya (physicist)
- Jekrul Haque (physician)
- Kalachand Roy (academic)
- Harinath Dey (biochemist)
- Khondakar Abu Taleb (journalist)
- Khondakar Abul Kashem (historian)
- Meherun Nesa (poet)
- Munier Chowdhury (Bengali literature)
- Mufazzal Haider Chaudhury (Bengali literature)
- Muhammad Habibar Rahman (mathematician)
- Mohammad Sadat Ali (businessperson)
- Mohammad Shamshad Ali (physician)
- Muhammad Shafi (dentist)
- Meher Ali (soil scientist, politician)
- M Abul Khair (historian)
- M Anwarul Azim (industrial administrator)
- Mir Abdul Qayyum (psychologist)
- Mohammed Fazle Rabbee (cardiologist)
- Mohammad Mortaza (doctor)
- Mohammad Moazzem Hossain (educator)
- Mohammad Aminuddin (lawyer)
- Abdul Muktadir (geologist)
- Nizamuddin Ahmed (journalist)
- Nazmul Hoque Sarkar (lawyer)
- Rashidul Hasan (English literature)
- Ranada Prasad Saha (philanthropist)
- Rakhal Chandra Das (physician)
- Sukharanjan Samaddar (Sanskrit)
- Jogesh Chandra Ghosh (scholar, Ayurveda practitioner, entrepreneur and philanthropist)
- Shahid Saber (journalist)
- Sheikh Abdus Salam (education)
- Sirajul Haque Khan
- Santosh Chandra Bhattacharya
- Shamsuddin Ahmed
- Laxman Das (wrestler, weight lifter, circus performer)
- Suleman Khan
- Sultanuddin Ahmed (engineer)
- Kosiruddin Talukder
- Shahidullah Kaiser (journalist)
- Selina Parvin (journalist)
- Bishnu Chattopadhyay (freedom fighter and leader of peasant movement)
- Saroj Kumar Nath Adhikari (economics)
- Sheikh Abdul Mannan (journalist)
- Shamsuddin Ahmed (physician)
- Oliur Rahman (Islamic scholar)
Verdict on the killing
On 3 November 2013, a special court in Dhaka sentenced two former leaders of the al-Badr killing squad to death for war crimes committed in December 1971. Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, based in London, and Ashrafuz Zaman Khan, based in the US, were sentenced in absentia after the court found that they were involved in the abduction and murders of 18 intellectuals – nine Dhaka University professors, six journalists, and three physicians – in December 1971. Prosecutors said the killings were carried out between 10 and 15 December, when Pakistan was losing the war in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), and were part of a campaign intended to strip the new-born nation of its intellectuals.
On 2 November 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh, sentenced Mir Quasem Ali to death for war crimes, which include the killings of intellectuals. It was proved in the tribunal that he was a key organiser of the Al-Badr, which planned and executed the killing of the intellectuals on 14 December 1971.
Statistics
The number of intellectuals killed is estimated in Banglapedia as follows:
- Academics – 991
- Physicians – 49
- Lawyers – 42
- Journalists – 13
- Others (litterateurs, artists, and engineers) – 16
The district-wise break down of the number of martyred academics and lawyers published in 1972 was as follows –
Administrative districts and divisions mentioned here are as they were in 1972.
Commemoration
Martyred Intellectuals Day is held annually to commemorate the victims. In Dhaka, hundreds of thousands of people walk to Mirpur to lay flowers at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial. The president and the prime minister of Bangladesh and heads of all three wings of the Bangladesh armed forces pay homage at the memorial.