November 1, 1971, Monday, an almost forgotten formidable guerrilla operation happened that day.
During the War of Independence, the ‘Provincial Election Office’ (now the Election Commission) was located in two rented houses in Momenbagh, Shantinagar area of Dhaka. One of the houses was owned by Abdul Momen Khan, the food minister in Zia’s cabinet (he is the father of former minister and BNP leader Dr Abdul Moin Khan.) The commission was preparing to hold by-elections in October-November 1971 by declaring their seats vacant.
In order to prevent that sort of immoral, illegal election, a powerful guerrilla group of 7 led by the late freedom fighter Sadek Hossain Khoka carried out a devastating explosion at the Dhaka Provincial Election Office on November 1, 1971 during Ramadan. Revered Rafiqul Haque Nantu, a heroic guerrilla freedom fighter, gave us details about this guerrilla operation. That guerrilla group included Rafiqul Haque Nantu (whose picture has been touted as Shaheed Nader Gunder), Iqbal Sufi, Hedayetullah, Lashkar and Bashar.
Reverend Abul Kashem, a Bengali officer in the election office (now an American expatriate) assisted in carrying out the operation amid a strong Pakistani military presence. He assisted Sadek Hossain Khoka as a relative to do Reiki in that office for 3 days.
Due to heavy rains at night, the presence of people on the roads was very low. The heavy rain that night was mainly conducive to the operation. The guerrillas, divided into two groups of three, planted explosives in two buildings of the provincial election office. At the beginning, all the security guards of the building were removed from the building by showing weapons. Part of a building was reduced to rubble in a horrific explosion after Plastic Explosives (PK) was installed. A security guard sleeping in the attic was killed at the time of the blast. The guerrillas did not know about this security guard before.
Revered Rafiqul Haque Nantu, one of the members of the expedition, further said that at the end of the successful expedition, the heroic warrior went into hiding in a mess of the employees of the WAPDA office at Gulbag in Shantibagh. When they went to the mess and called, the mess members opened the door, and the guerrillas told them, ‘We caused the explosion that happened a while ago. We are freedom fighters. ‘They were shocked to hear this. I have heard about the freedom fighters but seeing them from so close, this feeling is born in them. Unfamiliar mess members are quite helpful to uninvited guests.
In the excitement of the success of the operation that night, none of the six guerrillas slept at night and talked among themselves. The people of the mess forbade him to shout, saying that in front is the house of Maulana Nuruzzaman, the local leader of Bhutto’s People’s Party. If he finds out somehow, it will be a terrible danger. So caution should be exercised. We have to sleep at night, and thinking it is not possible to keep an eye on the members of the mess all the time, we tell them, our rule is ‘keep you tied up, two of you will stand guard with your arms outstretched and the rest will sleep. But since you are cooperating, I have assumed that you are the people of the liberation war, that is why we did not bind you. But more people are watching us outside, there will be problems if you want to do something. ‘
In fact none of us were outside. I said this to keep them in fear. The people at Mess were really good. They arranged our breakfast very early in the morning. When we left, he helped us with our bags to hide our weapons.
★ Information courtesy: Guerrilla fighter Reverend Rafiqul Haque Nantu.
★★Photo courtesy: Respected Iqbal Sufi and legendary photographer Jalaluddin Haider. The photo was taken after the successful guerrilla operation of November 1, 1971, conducted at the then Provincial Election Office in Momenbagh, Shantinagar.
Translation Credit: Our heartiest gratitude goes to Sreemoyee Mazumder, for her wonderful and kind support.