Cultural Hegemony & Untold Genocides by Rinita Mazumdar PhD

Testimony of Mrs. Barmala Roy

From The Diary of 1947 by Nirmal Kumar Basu, in Sandip Mukherji's Noakhali 1946, translated by Rinita Mazumdar. 

Last October 19, 1946 (English Calendar) Monday a group of Muslim men invaded our house. I know their faces but not their names. I know the name of one person, Mucha. They had lethal weapons. When they came into the courtyard, we immediately closed the front door. When they broke the door and started coming inside, we climbed the roof. From there we saw that all the outer rooms were set on fire. We saw from the roof that some of the hoodlums were starting a fire. Then some of them came upstairs. Then they dragged some of us downstairs and threw some downstairs. When we women came up, we saw that some of the men were tied by ropes, and some were beaten up and some wounded via knife and spear attacks. We, meaning the women and children, were all taken to the north near the concrete steps that lead to the pond.

My elder brother-in-law Dinnatha Roy hit some of the criminals on the head. He was with us. They pulled him from our midst and took him to the mandap[1] where the bigraha^[1] of Goddess Durga is kept and threw him in the fire in front of the Mandap. From the concrete steps leading to the pond, we saw that many were killed in the same way. Ramaniromon Roy, husband of my younger sister, was hit on the head by a club and then the goons threw him into the fire.

My brother-in-law Binod Majumdar, husband of my sister Jashoda, was among the women. They also took him, hit him with a club in the head, and threw him in the fire. They killed several people in this same manner. We could clearly see the mandap and Goddess Durga’s bigraha from the steps of the pond. We could see a large crowd there in front of the mandap. We saw that some of those who were half burnt were coming out of the fire and the criminal goons were throwing them back into the fire again. Then we saw that Bharat Bhowmick, our neighbor, was brought in front of the mandap and was killed. Seeing all this some of the women fainted. Then we were taken to our neighbor Bhowmick’s house, and they snatched all the jewelry from our bodies.

When they were snatching the jewelry some women’s noses and ears were also torn; they completely disrobed some women.  After this the Muslims in the Patari household took us and put us in the betelnut grove that belonged to the Bhowmick’s. Then yesterday they took us to the Patari house. From there the cops rescued seventeen of us and brought us here, to Noakhali. There were several women with us, but I do not know if all of them were rescued.

Yours truly,

Mrs. Barmala Roy
Wife of Late Monomohan Roy
Village, Govindapur
Police Station, Begumgung
District Noakhali.

From The Diary of 1947 by Nirmal Kumar Basu. Picture Credit: picryl.com 
Find previous articles of Dr. Mazumdar's series on Global Conflict by clicking here.