International Womens Day
Birangona Bobijan Begum lives sub-human life
Our Correspondent, Tangail
Bangladesh achieved independence at the cost of 30 lakh lives. During the Liberation War, two lakh women were tortured, raped, or gangraped by Pakistani army officers and soldiers and their collaborators. These women kept themselves away from public gaze for fear of social isolation and harassment. But the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, called them war
heroines and tried to rehabilitate them in the main stream of society. Birangona Bobijan Begum is one such war heroine. Now, at 66, she wants state recognition as a freedom fighter and is happy to see war criminals being executed.
Bobijan was born at Bashtoil Westpara of Bashtoil union in Mirzapur upazila of Tangail district. She was the daughter of Aradon Ali. She was 19 during the Liberation War. She got married to Dudu Kha, son of Dobu Kha of the same village, at the age of 13.
The Pakistani army had set up a camp in the village during the War of Liberation. The lust of the Pakistani soldiers had driven them to commit unimaginable atrocities on the beautiful young housewife. The horrors of the torture she was subjected to still haunt Bobijan.
She said: The Pak army burnt down houses, including those of Awami League (AL) union president of Bashtoil and freedom fighter Abdur Razzaque. They held her and a few other women captive at gun-point and gangraped them.
I became senseless. Local people rescued us and provided medical treatment when the Pakistani army left the place. But my husband left me because of the atrocities committed on me. I left my husbands house and took shelter in my parents house with my one-year-old daughter. She recalled.
Bobijan could not stay long in her parents house with her daughter because of the ill-treatment of her step-mother.
After the war, in order to survive, she got married for the second time to one Abdul Malek of Mymensingh district. But that marriage too broke down because of Maleks other wife.
Her son Rafiqul was born of her second marriage. She left her second husband and came back to her parents house at Bashtoil again. After her fathers death, she had to leave the house. She built a hut on a plot of government land and lived in abject poverty with her daughter and son begging from door to door.
An old man, identified as Yead Ali, later took her as his wife out of sympathy for a person in dire straits. Yead Ali died seven years ago. She began to live on a plot the forest department gave her. She alleged that one Nuru Mia, son of Abdul Gafur of the same village and who got three plots, used to harass her.
Even now, Bobijan lives with her son in the midst of crippling poverty. She is now old and infirm and unable to do physical work. She is also short of hearing and her memory, too, is beginning to fail. She laments that nobody cares for her. She cannot openly tell her story because of a sense of shame.
When asked whether she got any grant from the government, Bobijan said: I got nothing but humiliation, hatred and defamation. I got no old-age or widow allowance. A retired policeman of the village, Abdul Hye, said war heroine Bobijan had been living a sub-human existence in her old age.
Yeakub Ali, commander of the Bashtoil Union Muktijoddha, said Bobijan had been tortured by the Pakistani army after they burnt the houses of freedom fighter Abdur Razaque and others. Her husband deserted her because of what she had been subjected to.
Prof. Durlov Biswas, commander of the Mirzapur Upazila Muktijoddha Sangsad, said he came to know about Bobijan from freedom fighters of the area. Steps are being taken to arrange government facilities for her as per rules, he added.
Atiqur Rahman Milton, chairman of the Bashtoil union parisad, said government facilities would be provided after inquiries were over.
