December 8, 1971.
Pakistani army retreating...
Jhingergacha, nine miles from Jessore. East Pakistan.
On the muddy bank below the blown bridge, hundreds of Bengalis in long rows are passing logs down the line to be laid as planking for the approaches to a new pontoon bridge. As they work in machine-like precision, brawny troops from the army engineers inflate huge pontoons with a compressor, carry them through knee-deep muck to the water and then begin placing the aluminum spans across them. In four hours, the bridge is finished.
Everyone seems unusually happy.
This was the scene captured by The New York Times correspondence Sydney H. Schanberg: the united effort of the Mukti Bahini and the Indian troops.
Celebrating the driving away of the Pakistani forces, the people of Jessore shouted, cheered and embraced one another in pure ecstasy. The allied Indian soldiers were also as happy. They were the "liberators" there. They waved, smiled and posed for pictures from the top of their armored personnel carriers and tanks while they waited for orders to chase the retreating Pakistani troops farther away.
As the joint efforts were going on with the pontoons to make up for the bridge over the Kabathani River, joyous reunions were taking place in the town of Jhingergacha. People met friends and relatives who had fled at different times and in different directions to escape the invading army and were slowly returning now.
Schanberg met an old friend of his, at the site of the demolished bridge. He had meet Lieutenant Akhtar Uzzaman, a commander of a company of the Mukti Bahini, in an enclave won by the guerillas southwest of Jessore a month before. They reminisced there of that time. The reporter remembered that the 25-year-old lieutenant had said that gaining liberation was still at least two years away. "That was if we fought alone," he said, "Now we have heavy help."
The atmosphere in Jessore was exuberant. Everyone from the crowd praised the allies as much as they cheered for independent Bengal and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of East Pakistan. The brave Indian troops were still fighting. Major General Dalbir Singh, commander of the Ninth Infantry Division, said that the Pakistanis put up "a very fanatic, gallant fight" but once his men had "punched a hole" through their defenses, they retreated rapidly.
It was so invigorating to see those neighboring countrymen fought alongside the Bengalis. They helped us, fought with us, laughed with us, and were the witnesses of our newborn nation. They deserve the same respect as our freedom fighters.
They are as part of our history as we ourselves are.