Boom!

In 1971, Syed Mahbub Ali was a 20-year-old student and jobholder who lived in Dhaka city. This is his story of the war year.

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After the crackdown, I had just one thought: to do something. Otherwise, I decided, they'll always have foot on our head. My elder sister lived in Mohammadpur. They were safe but Bengalis in Mohammadpur or Mirpur, predominantly populated by non-Bengalis, or Biharis as they were commonly known, were always in danger. One day, in Mirpur, I was enquiring about my nephew at the house of a Bengali. I was speaking in Urdu although not very well and so was he. Both of us knew we were Bengalis. It was really weird.

No one looked at the soldiers. Best was to keep your eyes downcast. At Gulistan, one day, a friend of mine hailed me from across the street. I was about to cross over to his side of the street when military vehicles, two jeeps and a van, approached us. We forgot about the meeting and continued walking as we had been, in opposite directions.

Shortly afterwards, I told a friend I was leaving home and if I didn't return in three days he was to tell my father that I had gone over to India. I made it safely up to the Comilla border but savage firing by Pakistani soldiers discouraged our party from proceeding further and we turned back. On my way back to Dhaka I was stopped at the ferry.

"What do you do?"

"I'm a student," I blurted without thinking. It was open season on Bengalis of that status. But they just looked me over and let me pass.

I worked at the General Section in DIT (Dhaka Improvement Trust). Alawardi Kalizilbash was Secretary and he trusted me, so much so that he put me in charge of issuing ID cards to the staff who were often accosted by soldiers.

"Where do you work?" the soldiers would demand.

"In the General Section."

"Who is your boss?"

"Lt Col Kazilbash!"

"Okay, okay, pass!"

They probably thought that it was some general's section with a lieutenant-colonel in charge. Kazilbash was a retired army officer.

Friends and acquaintances who had joined the resistance needed ID cards. In July, a group who had made their camp at Savar got in touch with me. Many were guys from our neighbourhood. I had to do a bit of doctoring but now the freedom fighters had bona fide IDs, issued by the DIT and signed by Kazilbash.

Large quantities of plastic explosive and hand grenades would arrive. I kept some in my house, John stowed some in his. Others cached them elsewhere. The idea was, if caught only a small portion would be lost. We hadn't considered torture.

Among the things that people had to surrender to the Pakistanis I was intrigued by one item: bicycle-making-machine. Did one exist? Perhaps, the metal pipes in the frames could be used as gun-barrels. Or maybe they wanted to corner the bicycle market. Did they want to restrict our movement? What? Later, they corrected themselves. That should have read: cyclostyle machine (duplicating machine, precursor to the photocopier).

Feroze used to cyclostyle a newsletter called "Guerrilla" and I kept some of those folded in my shirt pocket. They almost never checked there.

Inevitably, they wanted to do an operation at the DIT. Very ambitious, specially when the Governor's House (now Bangabhaban or Presidential Palace) was practically next door. They asked me if I was game. "Blow up the tower or something, you know…" they suggested cautiously.

Okay," I told them. But how do I smuggle in the plastic explosive. Inside musical instruments? How about tablas? I approached a few TV artistes whom I could trust. They were petrified. They said it was impossible because of the rigorous checking. I finally told my comrades that I'd take it in myself. "How?" they wanted to know. "Anyway I can," I said. So, they showed me how to rig, arm and detonate a bomb.

I bought a pair of Bata sport shoes and put a slab of explosive in each shoe. Two slabs were bandaged to my torso. John and my younger brother helped. They also gave me a phone number. "Call us as soon as you've got it inside."

The first day when I called them there was no answer. I dialled from other sets but still there was no reply. I decided, if I didn't get in touch quickly, they'd all bolt. So I took a short leave from the office. When I reached home I saw John and my younger brother sitting in the veranda with grim faces.

"No one answered the phone," I told them, a bit annoyed.

"You called?" They looked surprised.

"I tried, many times," I said, handing them the piece of paper.

They had given me a wrong number!

It took me more than two weeks to accumulate fourteen pounds of explosive. I kept it in a large manila envelope under a pile of files in my cupboard which was secured by just a small lock. The place was never checked.

When Bachchu (Nasiruddin Youssuf) who was commanding this particular band of brothers, came into the scene, he was very courteous. "Can you do it?" he asked me. I told him if I could carry all that stuff inside, I could also blow it up. The problem was the fuse wire. How to carry it in? In the Chairman's lunch box? No!

In the meantime, the explosion at the Intercontinental (now Ruposhi Bangla) had already taken place and it really created a panic. I took a decision and told my comrades that we didn't need to blow up the tower or anything.

"We could make the same impact with just an explosion," I said. "There is no point in wasting all that plastic explosive."

"Can you get it out?"

"No problem," I said—and brought out seven pounds in one go, in an envelope tucked away inside my shirt.

Abdur Rahman Bhuiyan, fellow Bengali and Administrative Superintendent, had seen me packing it. "What is it?" he asked.

"This is the stuff that makes a very loud noise. Don't tell anyone."

"You're the guy who distributes those newsletters?"

"Yes," I replied and gave him a wide grin. He was among those I trusted.

D Day arrived. I wrapped the nine foot long fuse wire around one leg. I had to risk it. Anyway, they normally didn't check so vigorously. The detonator I fitted inside the shell of a Youth fountain pen. I stowed the fuse in my shirt pocket. Then I took my bicycle.

I had no feelings, no thought of my family, friends, anything. The only real thing was the task at hand.

They stopped me at the gate. After checking my trouser pockets, the soldier suddenly felt for my legs—but stopped an inch short of the fuse wire coiled above my knee! I lost all sense for a few moments and a weird laughter emitted from me. I thought I would have a heart attack as he waved me on. But I didn't trust my legs and got on my bicycle for the short distance to the parking area. The guard was staring at me curiously. There were checkpoints at a couple of other places—the lift and the floor I worked on—but they usually nodded if you were empty handed. I sailed through. In our room, I took my colleague Matlub Ahmed's hand and put it on my chest, just above my heart which was hammering away inside. "What happened?" my colleague asked.

"Nothing…I'll tell you later," I said. If I could, I would have taken a shower but I just washed my face and splashed water on my neck and shoulders. It took a long time for my heart to return to normal. Then I headed for the Tower.

I reached the place. There were two more floors above me. In a corner of the room was a pile of files and old ledgers. I began working. The British High Commission was next door and through the window I could see some people. It was Ramadan and those who wanted to smoke usually came up there. I waved at them. One was staring, curiously. I put my bomb under the files and lit the fuse. I had earlier thought of a three-minute fuse, the time it would take me to reach the front gate, but I changed my mind and decided I wouldn't to leave the DIT. How would they know, anyway? But I wanted to be as close to help as possible.

Moments after I had reached the Secretary's door, a thunderous explosion rocked the building! For a while, I was deaf with the concussion. Then, I saw, a shower of crystals cascading down past the windows, in slow motion! Shattered glass.

Just then, the colonel opened the door and found me.

"What happened?" he demanded.

"Sir, there was an explosion," I blurted. My act was very good, perhaps because I was very scared. As people ran around, there was a series of short-circuits in the building and smoke filled the corridors. Some people were crawling on the floor. They were expecting more bombs but I imitated them. Then, the soldiers were there. They carried brand new weapons and were in a furious mood.

We were lined up for checking. Never had I seen them checking people so thoroughly like they were doing that day. I had thrown away the last incriminating object, one of the fuse caps. I couldn't find the other one.

It was late in the afternoon and everyone was hungry but the queue was long and it moved slowly. As I inched towards the gate with my bicycle, I put a hand in my left trouser pocket—and found the missing fuse cap!

But they didn't check my pockets. They were scanning faces. How that would help, I don't know. Everyone looked the same to me. Very scared.

Once out of the gates, it felt like I had just been released from a cage. I breathed in the air in great gulps and my feet felt light.

They had wanted to shoot ten Bengalis from each floor. Either as retribution or until someone owned up, but Alawardi Kazilbash not only prevented it but took the entire responsibility on himself. There was a lot of heated talk but he refused to back down.

A courier, it was Feroze I think, went out with the news and the following evening, Charam Patra of Swadheen Bangla Betar (Free Bangladesh Radio) announced with unbridled glee that, "The bichchoo (scorpions) in Dhaka city made such a loud noise that Tikka Khan (Pakistani general) house in the Governor's House had to run to the toilet a number of times!"

My brother-in-law, who also worked at the DIT as a private secretary, later typed the report they sent to the higher authorities. Among the possibilities, they suspected that a lady had brought the bomb inside her coiffure and then detonated it (when her hair was out of the way). They hadn't found the culprit but were working on it. After that, female security personnel checked all ladies thoroughly.

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Ishrat Firdousi is a journalist and writer.