Mujib Bahini | |
---|---|
Leaders | Sheikh Fazlul Haque Mani, Tofael Ahmed, Serajul Alam Khan and Abdur Razzaq. |
Dates of operation | December 1971 |
Active regions | Bangladesh |
Ideology | Mujibism Bengali nationalism |
Size | 10,000 [1] |
Allies | India |
Opponents | Pakistan Army |
The Mujib Bahini, also known as Bangladesh Liberation Force (BLF), was an armed force formed during the Bangladesh Liberation War to fight against Pakistan in 1971. [2] The force was mainly composed of activists drawn from the Awami League and its student front, the Chhatra League. At its height, it had reportedly 10,000 members. [3] [2] [1] It was organised with the active assistance of Major General Sujan Singh Uban of the Indian Army and Research and Analysis Wing. Serajul Alam Khan and Sheikh Fazlul Haque Mani, Tofael Ahmed and Abdur Razzaq were the organizers of this force. [4]
Mujib Bahini's exact involvement in the war is disputed, with Zafrullah Chowdhury stating, "The Mujib Bahini did not fight the liberation war." [5] In 2014, A. K. Khandker was sued for accusing the Mujib Bahini of hooliganism and looting during the war in his book in his book 1971: Bhetore Baire. [6]
Professor Serajul Islam Choudhury of Dhaka University opined that four unnamed leaders of Mujib Bahini were more successful at creating a rift between Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Tajuddin Ahmad than Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed, creating difficulties for Ahmad. [7]
After the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, the Mujib Bahini was merged with the auxiliary Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini, which became infamous for its own human rights abuses. [7]
Zainal Abedin, a former student leader and a freedom fighter who crossed over to India in 1971 and joined the Mujib Bahini, reminiscing about how the Indian handlers and RAW agents treated them
Our Indian handlers and trainers indicated that they treated us (the Freedom Fighters) not as friends but as agents. The real Indian face lay bare after the surrender of Pakistani forces, when I saw the large scale loot and plunder by the Indian Army personnel. The soldiers swooped on everything they found and carried them away to India. Curfew was imposed on our towns, industrial bases, ports, cantonments, commercial centres and even residential areas to make the looting easier. They lifted everything from ceiling fans to military equipment, utensils to water taps. Thousands of Army vehicles were used to carry looted goods to India. History has recorded few such cruel and heinous plunders. Such a large scale plunder could not have been possible without connivance of higher Indian authorities. [8]
Some former members were rewarded by the Indian government and decided to become Indian citizens themselves. Bimal Pramanik, the director of Centre for Research in India-Bangladesh Relations, was a former sector commander of Mujib Bahini. He fled Bangladesh in the aftermath of Mujib's assassination in 1975 and shifted to Kolkata in 1976; he has been living in the city since then. [9]
Syed Nazrul Islam was a Bangladeshi politician and a senior leader of the Awami League. During the Bangladesh Liberation War, he was declared as the Vice President of Bangladesh by the Provisional Government. He served as the Acting President in the absence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad was a Bangladeshi politician. He was the Minister of Commerce in the third Mujib Rahman ministry under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and assumed the presidency of Bangladesh after the Assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975. He praised the assassins as "sons of the sun" and put cabinet ministers loyal to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in jail. He was himself deposed by another coup, less than three months later on November 3, 1975.
Tajuddin Ahmad was a Bangladeshi politician. He led the 1st Government of Bangladesh as its prime minister during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, and is regarded as one of the most instrumental figures in the birth of Bangladesh. He is one of the founding leaders of Bangladesh.
Mohammad Ataul Gani Osmani was a Bangladeshi military officer and revolutionary. His military career spanned three decades, beginning with his service in the British Indian Army in 1939. He fought in the Burma Campaign during World War II, and after the partition of India in 1947, he joined the Pakistan Army and served in the East Bengal Regiment, retiring as a colonel in 1967. Osmani joined the Provisional Government of Bangladesh in 1971 as the commander-in-chief of the nascent Bangladesh Forces. Regarded as the founder of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, Osmani retired as the first full general from the Bangladesh Army in 1972.
The Swadhin Bangla Biplobi Parishad was an armed underground student political group secretly organized in 1961 by Serajul Alam Khan, a key founder of Bangladesh, that worked to wage an armed secessionist struggle against Pakistani rule and achieve the independence of East Pakistan as "Bangladesh".
The Bangladesh War of Independence started on 26 March 1971 and ended on 16 December 1971. Some of the major events of the war are listed in the timeline below.
Mujibnagar, formerly known as Baidyanathtala (Boiddonathtola) and Bhoborpara, is a town in the Mujibnagar Upazila of Meherpur District in Khulna, Bangladesh. The Provisional Government of Bangladesh was formed on 10 April 1971, however, sworn in on 17 April 1971 in this place by the elected representatives of the Bengalees, that led the Bangladesh Liberation War, who were leading the guerrilla war for the independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971. The place was renamed Mujibnagar by the proclamation of independence, in honour of then imprisoned Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had declared Bangladesh independent. The actual capital of the government while in exile was Calcutta. A memorial complex covering 20.10 acres (8.13 ha) has been built at the site where the ministers of that first government took their oaths.
The Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini was a Bangladeshi para-military force formed in 1972 by the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman government.
Sheikh Fazlul Haque Moni was a Bangladeshi politician. He was one of the nephews of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. He was the founder of Mujib Bahini Bangladesh Liberation Force-BLF one of the major guerrilla forces of the Bangladesh Liberation War and also the founder of Bangladesh Awami Jubo League, the youth wing of Bangladesh Awami League.
Bangladesh's military history is intertwined with the history of a larger region, including present-day India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. The country was historically part of Bengal – a major power in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Air Vice Marshal (Retd.) Abdul Karim Khandker, Bir Uttom is a former planning minister of the Government of Bangladesh. He is a retired diplomat and was the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Bangladesh Armed Forces during the Bangladesh Liberation War, He was also the first Chief of Air Staff, getting the appointment immediately after the independence of Bangladesh in 1972.
The Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence, refers to the declaration of independence of Bangladesh on 26 March 1971, at the onset of the Bangladesh Liberation War by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman; the following day Major Ziaur Rahman declared independence on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra radio station in Kalurghat, Chattogram. On 10 April, the Provisional Government of Bangladesh issued a proclamation on the basis of the previous declaration and established an interim constitution for the independence movement.
The Provisional Government of Bangladesh, popularly known as the Mujibnagar Government ; also known as the Bangladeshi government-in-exile, was the first and founding government of Bangladesh that was established following the proclamation of independence of East Pakistan as Bangladesh on 10 April 1971. Headed by prime minister Tajuddin Ahmad, it was the supreme leadership of the Bangladeshi liberation movement, comprising a cabinet, a diplomatic corps, an assembly, an armed force, and a radio service. It operated as a government-in-exile from Kolkata. The president of this government was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who is the main undisputed figure here but in his absence Syed Nazrul Islam became the acting president.
The Mukti Bahini, also known as the Bangladesh Forces, was the guerrilla resistance movement consisting of the Bangladeshi military, paramilitary and civilians during the Bangladesh Liberation War that transformed East Pakistan into Bangladesh in 1971. They were initially called the Mukti Fauj.
Nizam Mohammad Serajul Alam Khan, commonly known as Serajul Alam Khan, also called as Dada, Dadabhai and by his initials SAK, was a Bangladeshi politician, political analyst, philosopher and writer who spearheaded the Bangladesh liberation movement under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman but also became one of the controlling forces of political polarization in post-independence Bangladesh.
The military coup in Bangladesh on August 15 of 1975 was launched by mid-ranking army officers in order to assassinate founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose administration post-independence grew corrupt and reportedly authoritarian until he established a one-party state-based government led by the socialist party Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League. Mujib, along with his resident family members, were killed during the coup but was survived by his two then-expat daughters, one of them being future prime minister Sheikh Hasina. The officers were led by Capt. Abdul Majed, Maj. Sayed Farooq Rahman, Maj. Khandaker Abdur Rashid and Maj. Shariful Haque Dalim.
The 3 November coup d'état was organised by Brig. Khaled Mosharraf against President Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad to remove him from the presidency and the assassins of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from power: Capt. Abdul Majed, Maj. Syed Faruque Rahman, Maj. Khandaker Abdur Rashid and Maj. Shariful Haque Dalim. The coup resulted a return of Mujibist forces in Bangladeshi politics for a short time.
The NAP-Communist Party-Students Union Special Guerrilla Forces was an armed force active in the Bangladesh Liberation War. It was organized jointly by the National Awami Party (Muzaffar) (NAP), Communist Party of Bangladesh and the East Pakistan Students Union. Its commander was Mohammad Farhad, with Pankaj Bhattacharya serving as deputy commander. Per the account of Moni Singh, the NAP-Communist Party-Students Union Special Guerrilla Forces had some 5,000 fighters at its peak.
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