Throughout the history of the Liberation War, there were many women who contributed to the war efforts in many, different ways, but very few have received the recognition they deserved. Here are the abridged accounts of three such extraordinary women, taken from the book Muktijuddhe Chottogramer Nari (Chittagong’s female freedom fighters) by Begum Mushtari Shafi.
‘There are no freedom fighters here’
In 1971, Dr Shamsunnahar Kamal was Chief Medical Officer at the Chittagong Port Hospital, where she worked tirelessly to provide support to the freedom fighters. During the war, she became a close ally of the pro-liberation forces. All three of her own sons also joined the war.
Dr Kamal took great personal risks to provide medical support to freedom fighters, and also supplied medical rations to the camps at the borders, often opening up her own home to provide food, shelter and medical assistance.
At 10pm on November 17, a group of Razakars suddenly surrounded her house and opened fire. In the midst of the gunfire, Dr Kamal ordered the freedom fighters sheltering in her home to lie down on the beds of her home clinic, while she covered them with white sheets and arranged everything to look like they were patients.
Just then, the leader of the attacking Razakar group, Khoka, along with three others, barged in. They pointed their weapons at Dr Kamal and her father and demanded they give up the fighters.
Dr Kamal calmly replied, “There are no freedom fighters here.” But Khoka roughly pushed her aside and rushed towards the beds. As Dr Kamal tried to stop him, one of his accomplices grabbed her while the other yanked a telephone wire and attempted to tie it around her neck. At this point, freedom fighter Bishwas leapt out of his bed to aid her, but Khoka shot him in the right leg and he lay sprawled on the floor, his blood spraying everywhere.
That is when Dr Kamal screamed, “If I am a Muslim woman, and if I pray five times a day, then know this, Khoka, I will fight you till the end. I will never let you kill my patients!”
Khoka stared at her for a while and then suddenly ordered his men to let her go. He then gave her one last look and simply left, ushering his men to follow him.
‘I will fight from the soil of my country’
The daughter of Alhajj Sultan Ahmed, a staunch conservative Muslim League politician during the Pakistan period, Jahanara Angur was surprisingly devoid of the religious rigidity and conservative views of her family, and had a strong sense of Bangali nationalism within her.
While studying at City College, she delivered fiery speeches at the meetings and street demonstrations of the Mahila Parishad and it wasn’t long before she was elected as the President of Chittagong City College Student Council. In politics, she was hugely influenced by the Awami League’s Six Point Programmee.
When Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman called for the non-cooperation movement in March 1971, Angur understood that there was no option left other than taking up arms against the West Pakistan rulers. She also realised that women too must take part in the struggle. With that in mind, she brought together female students from City College and started training under the supervision of retired Police Superintendent Delwar Hossain. The first training took place behind Baganghona in Lalkhan Bazar. They learnt how to fire guns and rifles, how to ambush an enemy, how to crawl and defend themselves during attacks, etc.
After the crackdown in March by the Pakistan military, Angur moved to her father’s village in Gachbaria, Mireshshwarai. There, she continued working for the country’s cause in whatever way she could. She held secret meetings and sent many young men to India for training. Guerilla fighters used to regularly cross over from India and contact Angur, and attacked local Pakistani military camps based on Angur’s intelligence information, which she managed to gather through the help of the village elderly and children.
She also organised local women and other villagers to provide safe hiding places for freedom fighters, as well as arrange first-aid for the wounded. With her life in constant danger, many of her friends among the Muktibahini repeatedly offered to take her to safety across the border. She declined every time, saying “I will fight from the soil of my country.”
‘Keep an ear out for news’
The wife of freedom fighter Chiro Ronjon Biswas, Meena Biswas was a staunch supporter of the Nationalist Movement and firmly believed that students and the country’s youth had a large role to play, and encouraged both her sons to join the war.
In 1970, Meena Biswas would regularly host secret meetings for her son and his friends, who were all Student Union members, at their house on Jubilee Road. She would make sure they were all fed and would stand guard, ears and eyes strained for the slightest signs of danger. When there were no meetings, she would stay up all night with her son Atanu, making handbills and posters to spread word of the movement and bring people together.
When her husband and sons left for the war, Meena Biswas had to deal with a lot on her own. On many occassions, she stored weaponry and ammunition that freedom fighters would bring to her for safekeeping. Fully aware of the great risk, she would conceal them in rice sacks and other large drums and bags.
On the morning of April 1, they suddenly heard loud slogans of “Joy Bangla” being chanted in the vicinity. They learned that there was a mass gathering of soldiers at DC Hill, but no one was sure yet whether they were Pakistani soldiers or those of the Bengal regiment.
Meena Biswas made a big pot of tea and handed it to her sons, along with a basket of biscuits, and told them, “Take this to DC Hill and pretend to be tea-hawkers. If the soldiers are part of our Bengali forces, offer them the tea and biscuits for free. But if they turn out to be the Pakistani Army, sell it to them and keep an ear out for news.”
The boys carried out their mother’s bidding and found out the soldiers were indeed Pakistani. Based on this information, the Biswas family managed to flee with their lives.
Despite all that she did for her country, Srimoti Meena Biswas said till the end that her biggest ‘dedication’ to her country was her eldest son, Shaheed Atanu Biswas.
