1963 Hazratbal Shrine: Theft of Prophet’s hair,

and the resulting BLOOD-SHED.

 SARASIJ MAJUMDER 

On 27 December 1963, Moi-e-Muqqadas, a holy relic believed by many to be a strand from the beard of prophet Muhammad, went missing from the Hazratbal Shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, leading to widespread protests and VIOLENCE across the Indian subcontinent.

In East Pakistan, Abdul Hai, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Islamic Board declared jihad against Hindus and other non-Muslims of East Pakistan. While returning to Islamabad, the President of Pakistan Muhammad Ayub Khan made a statement at the Dhaka airport that he won't be responsible for any reaction in Pakistan in response to the Hazratbal incident.

The relic, as per records, was brought in India in 1635 by Syed Abdullah. It was then inherited by  his son Syed Hamid, who gave it to a Kashmiri businessman named Nooruddin. In the late 17th century, the Emperor Aurongzeb imprisoned Nooruddin and seized the relic, relocating it to the Sufi tomb in Ajmer. Aurangzeb returned the relic in 1700 after Nooruddin had died. The relic was preserved by his descendants and kept in a place which later became the Hazratbal Shrine.

On 4 January 1964, the relic was recovered, and the Sadr-i-Riyasat –Dr. Karan Singh organised prayers at a Hindu temple to help dispel communal tension. The relic was inspected and identified by Sayyid Meerak Shah Kashani as being genuine. Shah Kashani said he had seen the relic many times and could easily identify it, and confirm as original.

Mr. B. N. Mullick, head of the then CBI informed Mr. NEHRU that the relic is recovered.

The then Home Minister of India,  Mr. Gulzarilal Nanda, also said in the parliament that the thieves "shall be identified, and Punished".

On 17 January 1964,  the three people were  arrested for the theft. They included three Kashmiri Muslims namely, Abdul Rahim Bandey, Abdul Rashid and Kadir Butt. They confessed the crime. The latter was believed to have affiliations with the Pakistan, as Mr. Nanda informed Parliament, and was reported in INDIAN NEWSPAPER.

The 1964 East Pakistan Riots and ethnic cleansing of Bengali Hindus from East Pakistan was direct consequence of above. The Muslims in East Pakistan took no  time to spread arson, looting and killing of Hindus and the Islamist groups immediately vowed a revenge by targeting the Bengali Hindu owned industries and merchant establishments in the capital city of Dhaka, Khulna, and Jessore particularly among others.

Khulna:- On 2 January 1964, the Hindus were barred from wearing shoes, use umbrellas or ride a rickshaw as a mark of mourning for the loss of Prophet’s (also called Nabi) hair. In the afternoon, processions came out in Khulna mourning the loss, and later went on to call for annihilating Hindus and subsequently a riot broke out.  At around 4 pm, attacks on Hindus started, in no bar mode. Abdus Sabur Khan addressed a huge rally at Daulatpur industrial area in the outskirts of Khulna. Thousands of non Bengali Muslims assembled there, many armed with primitive weapons. Khan spoke a venom spitting anti-Hindu and anti-Bharat speech, where he described the Kashmir incident as a Hindu conspiracy.

Following it, quite like the mad  MOB began to loot Hindu properties and set them on fire. Many Hindus were brutally chopped.  Women raped. A section of the mob marched towards the city, disrupting rail and road traffic reaching the town at sunset. For the next four days a pandemonium prevailed in the city featuring rape,  abduction,  loot,  and slaughtering of Hindus. The violence against the Hindus were led by the Muslim workers of Khulna Shipyard, Dada Company, Ispahani Company etc. The Chairman Union supplied the attackers with firearms. About 300 Bengali Hindus were shot dead at the Khulna Launch Ghat, when they tried to escape. All nearby Hindu villages were set to FIRE and converted to ashes.

Khan addressed three more meetings. Leaflets were distributed, warning the Hindus to leave Pakistan immediately. At Loppur Bazar, he addressed another gathering, where he said that he would make shoes out of Hindu’s skin, torn from their back. Once the violence escalated, Khan became occupied with the marriage of his niece. The marriage was attended by Abdul Moniem Khan, the Governor of East Pakistan, Kazi Abdul Kadar, member of National Assembly and former member of East Pakistan legislative assembly. Arvind Bhattacharjee, a reputed pleader of Khulna, repeatedly rang Khan for taking necessary action, but every time he excused himself by citing his unavailability due his niece’s marriage.

OVER A FEW DAYS—A HINDU MAJORITY KHULNA DISTRICT, (which was declared a part of INDIA in 1947, only to be revised later), BECAME A MUSLIM MAJORITY DISTRICT. BRUTAL ETHNIC CLEANSING WAS COMPLETE.

Dhaka: On 13 January, a meeting was held at the Dhaka stadium regarding the Hazratbal incident. On 14 and 15 January, Hindu passengers in the mail trains arriving at Dhaka from Chittagong and Sirajganj was asked to get down at Tongi and Tejgaon. Those who refused to get down were slaughtered. Subsequently, in Dhaka city Hindu temples were razed and Hindus were shot dead. Hindu temples,  properties, hostels, studios etc. property owned by Hindus were destroyed. Bangladesh’s most famous engineering college BUET then called EPUT (East Pakistan Institute of Technology) had its Hindu boy’s hostel every night pelted with stones and bricks. Hindu students were termed as Indian spies.

On 16 January, two Hindu bank employees were fleeing in a car after hiding in the bank premises for two days. Their car was stopped and they were killed. Schools, public library, Vivekananda Physical Club and the Hindu Charitable Hospital were burnt. Truckloads of dead bodies were brought to the hospitals from where they were sent to the burial grounds.

Numerous Hindus were buried with military escorts. Many women were raped and many young girls were abducted. The locality was ethnically cleansed of Bengali Hindus and renamed to Zafra bad from Rayer bazar (Roy’s market). Hindu boy’s hostel was razed and looted. Walls were painted with bloods of Killed Bengali Hindus, and Killed Marwari Hindus in URDU language. On 18 January, the 24-hour curfew was imposed, with troops patrolling the streets. The curfew was later extended till 8 am on 19 January.

Villages were also burnt. On 18 January, The Daily Ittefaq reported that 95% of the ruined houses belong to the Hindus in old Dhaka and about 100,000 Hindus were rendered homeless in Dhaka city alone. On 23 January, The Hindu quoting the Pakistan authorities, and ITTEFAQ,  reported that around 1,00,000 persons may be killed in communal violence in Dhaka during the last one week. An American Peace Corps nurse stated that only on 21^st  January there were 600 dead in Dhaka Medical College and Hospital alone.

The murder at Narayangunj: Adamjee group was a powerful business group here in the heart of the city, having jute and cotton mills. Their competitor was Dhakeswari cotton mills, run by a Hindu management. A rumour spread that the brother of Adamjee group’s manager was killed in Calcutta in Bharat last night. On the night of 13 January, the workers of the Adamjee Jute Mills attacked the Hindu quarters, mostly inhabited by the workers of Dhakeshwari Cotton Mills and set the Hindu houses on fire. Satyen Roy, the Manager of Dhakeshwari Cotton Mill called the Managing Director at 3 am and reported that the mill was on fire and asked for police and military. By next morning about twenty thousand workers of Adamjee run into the compound of Dhakeshwari Cotton Mills and resorted to indiscriminate looting, arson and murder, killing about a thousand Hindu workers and abducting their wives and daughters.

But hardly there were any relief for the unfortunates. About a few thousand helpless Hindus with their children rushed to the compound of Lakshminarayan Cotton Mills. This mill was still safe. But a few hours later a few thousand Muslim attackers, upon learning about the Hindu congregation there razed into it. Professor Richard Novak of Notre Dame College went to Narayanganj to take photographs of mass violence. As a result, he was stabbed to death at Lakhadgola, near the Adarsha Cotton Mills.

The British Era’s erstwhile Landlord Hindu families in the adjoining area had perhaps the worst fate. Their families were uprooted over-night. Men folk slaughtered and women raped before their children. Young boys and girls were either carried off to camps or shot on the way.

The violence eventually spread eastwards towards Rajshahi district where the Hindu lower caste tribals were burnt alive.

In Sylhet, the district bordering Bharat’s Assam tea workers were made to sit for mass conversion to Islam at gun point. A religious preacher of Hindu was forcefully fed beef before his followers, something considered as a cardinal sin in the religion, like consuming pork in Islam.

The Government imposed the Disturbed Persons (Rehabilitation) Ordinance that prohibited the sale of immovable property by any Hindu, making the only option for Hindus is to leave their properties behind and flee to India. Their assets were subsequently misappropriated by vested quarters of the Muslim leadership. The ordinance was challenged at the Dhaka High Court by Chittaranjan Sutar, a Hindu where the government lost. This triggered anger further and Manoranjan Dhar, a Hindu advocate of Dhaka High Court and many other Hindu leaders were put into jail on fabricated charges. Mr. Puleen Dey, a Hindu professor, and former member of legislative assembly and Secretary of Pakistan Socialist Party was arrested too from Chittagong.

The press reports were censored and photography was banned. Censorship was imposed on The Daily Ittefaq and Pakistan Observer for their honest coverage. In protest five dailies stopped publication. When reports surfaced that over 1,00,000 people had been killed in capital Dhaka itself, government lodged an immediate protest.

Tribal Banishing:- More than 75,000 tribal refugees, fled since the genocide began. The refugees took refuge in Garo Hills in Assam. Lakshmi Menon, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Bharat stated at the Lok Sabha that about 1,000 refugees were fired at by the Pakistan Rifles, while they were crossing over to Bharat. By 28 March, total around 78,000 tribal refugees had migrated. But the forced migration of the tribal Christians created a lot of uproar in international community. A cornered Pakistan government made an effort to bring Christians home, leaving the Hindus merely to get its image correct before the west.

The Magistrate appealed to the Christian refugees to return. The Archbishop of Dhaka met President Ayub Khan and wrote a letter asking the followers to return home. The Indian authorities announced the appeal of the Pakistan government and the Archbishop of Dhaka to the refugees in the camps and offered them free transportation to the border.

However the Christian tribal refugees rejected the appeal and declined to go back to Pakistan. Over the years, They multiplied, and have become  the cause of present unrest in NORTH -EAST.

The HAZARAT BAL incident was ISI caused, may be a part of bigger conspiracy, ---- which PAKISTAN completed later by attacking India in 1965.

REFERENCES:-

1.0-       1.0 Bhattacharyya, S.K. (1987). Genocide in East Pakistan/Bangladesh.

2.0-         2.0 Trivedi, Rabindranath (23 July 2007). "The Legacy of the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh – Part-VII: Bengali Muslims and Communalism in 1964". Asian Tribune. World Institute for Asian Studies. 

3.0-      Mukhopadhyay, Kali Prasad (2007). Partition, Bengal and After: The Great     Tragedy of India. New Delhi: Reference Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-81-8405-034-9.

4.0   NEWS PAPERS:- JUGANTOR, DAINIK ITTEFAQ, STATESMAN, HINDU—27/12/1963 to 28/01/1964