We're sorting them out...

MAJOR BASHIR, Comilla

At about 8 P.M. on 25 March 1971, an unidentified cycle rickshaw hastily pulled into the lane leading to 32 Dhanmandi and came to a halt outside Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Dacca residence. The driver was coughing and out of breath. He said he had peddled all the way from the cantonment with an "urgent chit" for Bangla Bandhu. The unsigned message in Bengali was terse: "Your house is going to be raided tonight."

One of those present on the occasion told me it was the first hard news they received of the impending action by the West Pakistan army. President Yahya Khan's unannounced departure earlier in the evening had caused a big stir in the Awami League camp. When this was followed by ominous signs of military movements, Sheikh Mujib advised his lieutenants to "be cautious" and prepare to go into hiding. The Bangla Bandhu himself refused to take the same precautions. He said he would remain at home, "in my place."

Few Bengalis have seen him since.

Some of his followers kept telephoning his residence every half hour to inquire about his safety. His servant gave an assuring reply. At 1.30 A.M. about two-and-a-half hours after the air had. been filled with the sound of guns and the night sky was bright with the glare of flames, Sheikh Mujib's telephone went dead. In mounting panic the word was passed that the army had got Bangla Bandhu.

Recounting the event to me three weeks later and pointing out the bullet holes in the walls, a neighbor told me how Sheikh Mujib had quietly waited for his captors.

At about 1.30 A.M., he said, two army jeeps followed by a few trucks halted outside No. 32. Moments later the garden was swarming with, soldiers. Some shots were fired, at the roof and through a window on the top floor. The soldiers, he said, were not attacking, just threatening. Then in the commotion Sheikh. Mujib was heard calling from an upstairs bedroom; "Why are you being so barbarous? If you had called me I would have come down to you."

Mujib, with a maroon dressing gown thrown over pyjamas, walked down the stairs to where a young captain was standing. My informant said the officer was polite and courteous. "You will come with me, Sir," he said in a firm, flat voice. Then they all drove away.

An hour later after Sheikh Mujib's wife and younger child had fled to an adjoining house, another army truck arrived on the scene. This time the soldiers were not polite at all. They smashed every pane of glass on the ground floor, broke furniture, overturned beds and book-cases. Photographs and pictures ripped from the wall were scattered on the floor. One was a signed picture of Chairman Mao Tse-tung in a light silver frame. I wondered how Mujib had got it. The soldiers were not just searching. They were savaging an enemy presence just as a wounded tiger