Operation KharchaKhata – Nilphamari, Bangladesh.
Operation KharchaKhata – Golahat / Syedpur, Nilphamari, Bangladesh.
|
1971, 13th June, Nilphamari, Bangladesh
a total of 436 innocent Hindus were slaughtered, who were promised to reach
India safely by train. That day this culvert and railroad in the pic turned
into an ocean of corpses.
A large number of Marwaris lived in
Syedpur town of Nilphamari district. Hindus from different parts of India,
who came to the commercial city of Syedpur for business purposes long before
the partition in 1947, stayed in this city. 
Night of March 23, 3 days before the
start of the 1971 BD War, the Pak army at Syedpur & their local allies,
urdu speaking Ms, started killing Bengalis indiscriminately. From March 24,
the Bengali families in Syedpur town were completely cordoned off. Panic
spread in Marwaripatti. TulsiRam Agarwala, JamunaPrasad Kedia &
RameshwarLal Agarwala, leading personalities of the local Marwari community
were killed by the Pak forces on 12 Apr at the Nisbetganj near Rangpur Cant.
Their houses were looted at gunpoint. On June 5, the Pakistani army suddenly
announced, "Those who are Hindu Marwaris will be taken to a safe place
in India. A special train has been arranged. The train will reach the border
on June 13." No one could have guessed what would happen next, what was
awaiting them. The announcement lasted for 5 days,
meanwhile H Marwaris packed their belongings to board the train. More than
450 Marwaris waited at Syedpur railway station since the night before as they
feared of limited train seats. Next morning the train arrived at 5am,
with only 4 bogies reserved for H Marwaris. With their belongings &
families, the bogies soon became crammed, people could barely stand with
their belongings. The train finally started at 10 am. Before the train started, about 20
Hindu Marwari girls were forcefully picked up in front of their hapless
families. Men were separated from women & kids. All the windows &
doors of these bogies were closed after the train left. Then there started a journey of horror. The train slowly came to a halt near
Golahat just 2 miles from Syedpur. As soon as the train stopped, the doors of
each bogie were opened & local Muslims entered inside with sharp machetes
in hand. Outside, the Pak army surrounded the whole area with heavy firearms.
Razakar Izahar Ahmed, Urdu speaking
Bihari Muslim leader Qayyum Khan & a large number of Pak army troops were
present at Golahat. Not a single Hidu Marwari should be spared. The killings
started. One by One they butchered amid heavy rains.  "Tum iss mulqk ka baagi ho, Tumko
aisehi mara jaiga" said one with a machete while beheading an aged man
on the track, flung the body to the Nayanjuli canal amid fanatic religious
cheering slogans. In an instant, the bogies were filled with roars of demonic religious cheers, terrified screams of desparation & misery. Some of the bodies were cut into pieces in front of their families & thrown around the railway line. Children are brutally killed. In just a few hours, 437 innocent people were butchered mercilessly. Many passengers asked them to shoot instead of butchering, but the Pakistanis replied~ We have come to kill you. But Pak's pricey bullets will not be wasted. Everyone will be sacrificed in this coup. One by one the Hindu men were kicked to leave the bogie & slaughtered. Kids were snatched from their mother's chest, thrown up in the air, then flung on the railway tracks & smashed the heads or ripped the bodies apart through their torso. Dhaka Tribune says the Marwari women were taken to an area called Astana-E-Haq & raped en masse by Pak Army, Razakars & local Urdu speaking Muslims.
Surprisingly, only 10 young people survived the massacre that day. They got off the train & fled to nearby Dinajpur. Tapan Kumar Das, Gobindo Ch Das, Binod Kr Agarwala were among them who lived to tell the horror of a genocide wrapped in deception. Witnesses said the killers were cheering "Kharchakhata, Kharchakhata" during the massacre. Operation Kharchakhata or Golahat Massacre was the name of a pre-planned Hindu genocide by Pakistani army, Bihari Muslims and Razakars. |
 |
| monument erected by locals to commemorate the lives lost |
 | |
|
