<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>That day was Thursday. A dark fortnight. Even though the street lamps were lit, the darkness did not end. There were some hints earlier. Many had moved to safe havens. Those who could not, were silent in the corner of the room. A dull hum enveloped the entire Dhaka city in a deep darkness. Through that darkness the assassins came out from the cantonment and spread all over the city. Take the position according to the chart. Artillery, Armored, Infantry—three battalions drawn from the three armies.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">US M-24 tanks rolled into the DU campus, cannons raised, leaving teeth marks on the ground with thirty lorries of murderers. The base was built in front of the British Council Library. Around 11 pm, the armored cars started moving. To instill terror, the soldiers started firing indiscriminately. The sound of mortars and machine guns spread panic in the entire area. The flames that started flying all around did not only destroy, but also created a ghostly atmosphere by tearing people's breath into pieces and giving birth to a terrible horror.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Armed with modern weapons, the Pakistani soldiers wasted no time and stormed into Iqbal Hall (Sergeant Zahurul Haque Hall). Surrounding the entire area like an octopus. The massacre began. During the days of the March non-cooperation movement, the activities of the Swadhin Bangladesh Chhatra Sangam Parishad were conducted from this hall. That is why this hall was the top target of the Pakistanis. They were constantly firing bullets, cannons, grenades, tearing open the chest of darkness. Everything was bruised and bloody. All around was death and people's cries. It was a horrible situation. Journalist of 'The Telegraph', Simon Dring entered Iqbal Hall two days after the incident. He himself counted thirty bodies there. According to him, two hundred innocent students were killed that day in Iqbal Hall alone with mortar shells and machine gun fire. Two days after the attack, innumerable bodies can be seen lying in the burned rooms.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At midnight, the invaders entered the Jagannath Hall through the north and south gates and started indiscriminate killings. Rifles and submachine guns started firing along with the mortar attack. They searched every room and started shooting students.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In his book 'Dhaka Bissobiddaloy Gonohotta: 1971 Jagannath Hall', Professor Ratanlal Chakraborty said, 4 teachers, 36 students and 21 staff and guests were massacred there that night. Six students were forced to dig graves by Pakistani hyenas. Those six students were burying their long-time traveling companions through nightmares. Still they could not survive. They were also shot and killed by a group of hyenas. When consciousness is drowning in the dark, when man is no longer man, only such cruelty, such brutality is possible; The evidence of which was left by the hyena group at Jagannath Hall. After playing blood holi at Iqbal Hall and Jagannath Hall, the hyena gang attacked Salimullah Hall. Eleven students were found from different rooms, lined up and shot. The green grass was colored with blood. The red-green flag was made of blood stains.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pakistani armed forces entered Rokeya Hall that night. Such a great humiliation of Islam happened at the hands of the flag bearers of the establishment of the Islamic state. The girls in the hall were hugging each other in fear and chanting. Even the leaves of the trees wept with their painful screams that night. According to Archer K. Budd's book 'The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh', Rokeya Hall was set on fire that night and the female students were fired upon with machine guns as they ran out of the hall. After that, many girls were killed by bayonets. Some chose to commit suicide by jumping from the roof to save their dignity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the 8th volume of the book 'Swadhinata Juddho: Dalil Patra', edited by Hasan Hafizur Rahman, The author wrote, Saheb Ali was then the Sweeper Inspector of Dhaka Municipality. According to him, on March 30, 1971, a major of the Pakistani army from the Rokeya Hall of Dhaka University informed the municipality on the telephone that they could not sit there because of the rotting smell of human corpses around the Rokeya Hall. After that, Sahib Ali entered Rokeya Hall with six domes and searched all the rooms of the hall but did not find any corpse. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to Ali, I went to the roof of the fourth floor and saw the naked body of a beautiful 18-year-old girl. I asked a Pakistani soldier who was in charge of me, why is there no bullet injury in the body of this girl, but why is she lying dead? He burst into laughter and said, we, all the Pakistani army, raped her to death! I saw the naked body of the rotten beauty! Full-grown eyes are swollen, hair is torn, private parts are swollen up from the abdomen, genitals are bloody. I saw animal like bite marks on both his cheeks, human teeth bite marks on his chest. I covered the body with a sheet and brought it down. Entering the servant quarters of Rokeya Hall, we found five dead bodies of the wives and relatives of five gardeners and eight male bodies (gardeners). Looking at the body, it seemed that everyone was sleeping before death. I took a truck and picked up the dead bodies of a Hindu professor, his wife and two sons from the third floor of Shibbari at Dhaka University.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The report that the US Consul General sent to the US State Department during the Liberation War was published in 2002 citing the 'US Secret Documents'. It was mentioned that - a businessman said that the naked bodies of six girls were hung from the ceiling fans in Rokeya Hall of Dhaka University. Apparently, the girls were shot dead after being raped and then hanged from fans.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is known from 'The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh' by the Council General Archer K Blood of Dhaka, that the Rokeya Hall was set on fire. When the female students started coming out of the hall to escape the fire, the Pakistani forces opened fire on them indiscriminately. According to Army Unit 88's conversation with the Pakistan Army's control room, approximately 300 female students were killed at that time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some of the university teachers were equivalent to weapons of mass destruction to Pakistanis. Under their supervision, the student society has increased the momentum of the movement. A group of Pakistani armed forces plan to wipe them out. The list is already prepared. The plan was implemented that night. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Pakistani army killed 9 teachers. In the early hours of the night, Pakistani forces killed Professor Fazlur Rahman and his two relatives. Then Muhammad Muqtadir, a professor of Geology, was shot dead. Then Maths Professor AR Khan Khadeem and Professor Sharafat Ali were killed. During the attack on Jagannath Hall, the former principal of the hall Govindachandra Dev was killed by the invaders. A Muslim girl was his adopted daughter. The name is Rokeya. He married his daughter off to a banker named Mohammad Ali. That girl's husband and she were taken for a walk in the dark field and killed by the invaders. The blood of the son-in-law and father-in-law, bound not by blood relation, but only by the Hindu-Muslim harmony of modern times, mingled on the same plane on the grounds of Jagannath Hall.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Soldiers hit the door of Professor Jyotirmoy Guthakurta with boots. The proud professor opened the door without the least bit of fear. The ghouls shot him in front of his wife Basanti Devi and daughter Dola. Also, Anudvaipayan Bhattacharya, assistant resident teacher of the hall, was brutally killed in Jagannath Hall. At around 3:00 pm, Professor of Statistics Moniruzzaman, along with his fourteen-year-old nephew Manju, sixteen-year-old son Akramuzzaman and brother Shamsuzzaman were killed by entering the university staff quarters adjacent to Jagannath Hall. He was reciting the Quran Sharif while sitting in prayer. Jainamaz was trampled under boots, dragged outside and shot. A group of mindless butchers who claim the excellence of Islam, debased Zaynamaz and the Holy Quran.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not only the students and teachers of Dhaka University, but also the officers and employees and their families were killed in the entire campus. EPR guards guarding the British Council were killed before the attack on Iqbal Hall. Then the employees of Iqbal Hall were taken and killed in the teachers' lounge of the university. A few officers and employees were killed in Rokeya hall premises. The invading forces attacked Gurudwara Nanak Shahi adjacent to Arts Building, Ramana Kali Mandir and Ramana Shiva Mandir adjacent to Shaheed Minar and killed many innocent people that night. Madhusudan Dey, owner of Madhur Canteen, lived in a house adjacent to Jagannath Hall. He was also killed. Not only inside the campus, but also the area around the campus was burnt by the pakistani military forces.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the account given by M A Rahim in his book 'The History of the University of Dhaka', it can be seen that more than three hundred people were martyred in the university area that night. Pakistan Army wireless communications also shared information about the killing of over three hundred people at the university. When the sun of the new day was about to rise in the sky after smearing the blood of the martyrs of that terrible night, Tikka Khan's public relations officer Major Siddique Salik went out to survey the Dhaka University area. In his book 'Witness to Surrender' he mentions, 'I was surveying mass graves in Dhaka University area. There I saw three mounds, each three to fifteen meters in diameter. They were to fill with new soil. That's why Tikka Khan asked to clean the glasses after giving a river of blood, there are no human beings anywhere.'</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Almost every hall of Dhaka University, residential areas, academic buildings and graves of martyrs, memorials in various open places continue to bear the signature of the 25th March Genocide even today.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>