Bangladesh’s first military dictator Gen Zia was keen on military control in 1971, says author Sukharanjan Dasgupta
India Today
In an exclusive interview with India Today, author and veteran columnist Sukharanjan Dasgupta said he was briefed about Gen Zia's political ambitions by a senior BSF officer during the 1971 war.
Bangladesh's first military ruler Gen Ziaur Rahman, who later founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to legitimise his hold on power, was always keen on military control of the country as he envisaged a Pakistan-style military rule for the country amid the country’s battle against Pakistan in 1971.
In an exclusive interview with India Today, author and veteran columnist Sukharanjan Dasgupta said he was briefed about Gen Zia's political ambitions by a senior BSF officer during the 1971 war. As the chief correspondent of Anandabazar Patrika, he reported on the Liberation War by gathering information from freedom fighters in Bangladesh.
Dubbed as a “friend with a pen in India” by the country’s leading daily star for his reportage on the liberation war, Dasgupta is the author of the best-seller "Midnight Massacre" on the 1975 Bangladesh coup that killed most members of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's family and led to Zia's emergence as the country's first military dictator.
"BSF troopers were fighting with freedom fighters under Zia’s command from the very outset of the Pakistani crackdown on the Chittagong-Tripura border. Sometime in June 1971, he told a Bengali BSF officer that the country should be handed over to the army," says Dasgupta.
He says then BSF IG Golak Majumder had told him about this conversation, which was kept a secret but reported.
"Desh ta Swadhin hole amader hathe deyar chestha korben. Juddho amra korchi, Neta ra sudhu bhashan dicchen (we should be allowed to run the country.. the leaders are just lecturing around)," Zia had told the BSF officer whose report went up to BSF DG Nari Rustomji through Golak Majumdar.
The entire communication was secret but Dasgupta learnt of it from Majumder.
