From Rawalpindi to Agartala
By: Mir Aftabuddin Ahmed (Toronto, Canada)
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The 1971 War of Liberation impacted the lives of each and every Bengali living in erstwhile East Pakistan. Our family had to relocate towards our ancestral villages to ensure their safety. My father’s cousin, Group Captain Shamsul Alam Bir Uttam, who at the time was serving the Pakistani Air Force, was stranded in West Pakistan. He shared with me his journey of being a serving officer of the Pakistani establishment and transitioning to fighting for a free, independent and sovereign Bangladesh.
“I was very fortunate to have been selected under a competitive selection process to join the Pakistan Air Force Academy in 1964; I joined the privileged class of Pakistani society. Living in West Pakistan, I almost forgot the misery and sufferings of my motherland. Then came the election date of 1970. It rekindled our hope to come out of the shackles of the West Pakistani political and military establishments. As soon as the election results were declared in favour of the Awami League, all Bengali officers and men residing in West Pakistan felt the presence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in their hearts and minds. By February 1971, I was getting information through various inside contacts about the Pakistani army mobilizing large numbers of extra troops to East Pakistan. I was assigned to fly few such missions. I realised that while President Yahya Khan was pretending to have discussions and deliberations with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Pakistani government was playing a bluff and buying time to mobilize the troops and arms to crack down on East Pakistan.
I flew my last mission on March 18, 1971. By then, the seeds had already been sown in my heart to join the Liberation War. On March 26, 1971, while I was in Rawalpindi, West Pakistan I had made my decision. I began planning out my escape to join our freedom struggle.
Those of us who were posted in West Pakistan were already separated from our families. So I had taken the decision on my own to make an escape plan. I took a Pakistani International Airlines flight from Karachi on March 3, 1971 to Dhaka and travelled as a civilian. But I could not fool the military intelligence team at Dhaka airport. I was arrested and put in the Prisoner of War camp. I had to endure all sorts of interrogation and torture for months. It wasn’t until mid-August that I finally got an opportunity to make the final escape and make my journey to Kolkata. I reported to Tajuddin Ahmed, Nazrul Islam, MAG Osmani and AK Khandakar. During my final journey from Dhaka, I briefly stayed in Malibagh at our family house, and it was my brother Rezaul Karim (Mona) who organised a boat for my journey to Agartala.”
Joining his fellow freedom fighters in Agartala, Group Captain Shamsul Alam Bir Uttam started a crucial chapter in an illustrious career — most notably by being part of Operation Kilo Flight. He remains a hero to us all, and I hope we can follow in his footsteps and be part of ensuring a truly independent, free, sovereign and inclusive Bangladesh.
