May Russel’s blood usher in a humane world

“Before Russel’s birth, Kamal, Jamal, Rehana, Khoka uncle and I were at home. We were tense. Ma was with Boro Fupu and Mejo Fupu (paternal aunts). A doctor and a nurse arrived. Time seemed to have stopped. Jamal and Rehana kept falling asleep only to wake up again. We stayed awake the entire night to welcome the youngest member of the family. Mejo Fupu came out with news. We had a baby brother. Our joys knew no bounds. We couldn’t wait to see our baby brother,” this is how prime minister Sheikh Hasina remembered the moment of her younger brother Sheikh Russel’s birth in the book titled ‘Amader Choto Russel Shona’. It was an October night of 1964.

Let’s fast forward to another night in August 1975.

The melancholic sound of the bugle cut through the stifling darkness of the night. The morning sky turned blue in sorrow. On 15 August, a house at Dhanmondi Road 32 was soaking in blood. The map of Golden Bengal was forever stained by the killing of its own father. Little Russel’s pleadings to stay alive were drowned in the cacophony of a sten gun held by devils disguised as humans. Never before had the world been witness to a dawn as gruesome as this.

It was 15 August 1975. Srabon 22, 1382 according to the Bengali calendar. The azan for the Fajr prayer was being called. Suddenly, the noise of many cars and heavy gunfire woke everyone up. Bangabandhu, taken by surprise, started dialing the telephone. Bangamata woke up Russel. She helped him put on the new indigo shirt they had bought for him as his school uniform. She called their domestic helper Roma and said, “Take Russel to the neighbour’s house. Use the stairs at the back of the house. Don’t return until I tell you.” Quickly, Roma went to the ground floor with Russel. But soldiers stationed there stopped them.

Little Russel thought – maybe these people will capture his father, like how the Pakistan army used to arrest him from the house. But the noise of repeated gunshots snapped him out of his thoughts. Little Russel, frightened by the noise, was shaking involuntarily and crying. By then, Bangladesh’s founder and the father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated along with his family members at the hands of the murderous gang of conspirators.

After that, those anti-Bangladesh ghouls erupted in heinous celebrations. Russel, with tears rolling down his eyes, told them, “I want to go to my mother.” Some of the murderers looked at little Russel and burst into a sinister laugh. One of them grabbed Russel by the hand and started dragging him saying that he will take Russel to his mother. After taking a few steps, Russel froze when he saw the bloodied dead body of his elder brother Kamal. A soldier dragged this innocent child to the top of a staircase that was drenched in blood. The body of his father was lying on the stairs. Russel’s throat dried up. A sob came out from the depth of his heart.

The murderers dragged Russel, who was frozen with fright, to the bedroom. Russel, with a stunned expression, saw his mother Fazilatunnesa Renu, brother Jamal and sisters-in-law Khuki and Rozy lying lifeless in a pool of blood. Darkness fell on the eyes of this innocent child. He gathered all his strength and somehow stood up. He saw that the soldier was pointing a gun at his head. Russel looked him in the eyes, and with a tear-soaked voice pleaded to him, “Don’t kill me. I’m just a child. Send me to Hasu apa.”

But little Russel’s pleadings were silenced by the sinister laugh of the devil and the noise of the brush fire. Sheikh Russel’s face got completely blown off, and the innocent child’s voice was forever silenced. To take revenge for their defeat in the war for independence, the murderous gang of traitors assassinated Bangabandhu with his entire family and then unloaded rounds of bullets on a tiny bird-like little child.

How do we Bengalis hide this crime! O Lord, give us the strength to understand, make us humans.

May no other child in the world suffer such a cruel death. May every child of this country grow up in a safe environment. On the altar of Russel’s blood-soaked memories, may a humane world emerge.

* Aleem Haider is a poet, and member of the National Poetry Council