Month: May 2026

Kallyanpur Genocide, Dhaka

Kallyanpur Genocide is a short documentary booklet written by Ali Akbar Tabi and published in March 2015 in the Genocide-Torture Index series, produced by the 1971: Genocide-Torture Archive & Museum Trust. Written as a place-based record, it reconstructs how the Kallyanpur area of Dhaka became a concentrated site of occupation-era violence in 1971, combining geographic context (including a location map) with narrative testimony and a structured listing of victims.

The report situates the Kallyanpur events within the opening phase of the crackdown that began on 25 March 1971, describing a pattern of house-to-house raids, mass detention, and executions carried out in civilian neighbourhood space rather than on a battlefield. It foregrounds the organised character of the violence: residents are described as being identified, rounded up, and then killed in repeated episodes, with bodies disposed of in ways intended to erase traces and terrify survivors. The booklet’s narrative emphasis is not only on death, but also on the broader architecture of atrocity, including intimidation, forced displacement, and the unmaking of everyday life in a densely populated urban locality.

A significant element of the report is its account of collaboration. It frames the Pakistan Army as the principal perpetrating force, while also describing the enabling role of local collaborators, including Razakar networks and segments of armed Bihari groups in and around the Dhaka camps/localities, who, the booklet argues, assisted with identifying targets, guiding troops through lanes and housing clusters, and participating in intimidation and violence.

The genocide linkage in the report is made through pattern and purpose: civilians are presented as targeted because of their identity and perceived political affiliation, with violence carried out as a systematic campaign to destroy the social foundations of Bengali life in the capital. By naming places, reconstructing sequences of raids, and listing victims, the booklet positions Kallyanpur as a micro-history of the wider 1971 genocidal campaign: organised state violence, locally enabled persecution, and lasting trauma that continues to shape memory and justice claims today.

Kallyanpur Genocide_DhakaDownload

Bohala Genocide, Dinajpur

Bohala Genocide (Bengali: বহলা গণহত্যা) is a short documentary volume in the Genocide-Torture Index series (no. 16), written by Azharul Azad Jewel and published in March 2015 by the 1971: Genocide-Torture Archive & Museum Trust. The book forms part of a wider national effort to document local killing fields and survivor memory before they are lost, and to create an evidence-based counter to denial and minimisation.

The report locates the atrocity in Bohala, a locality in Biral Upazila, Dinajpur, and identifies the site as a recognised killing field where, the author states, around 42 unarmed civilians were brutally murdered by the Pakistan Army. By placing Bohala within the wider Dinajpur theatre of 1971, the book shows how mass violence travelled beyond major cities and battlefronts into rural settings, where civilians could be seized and killed with little warning.

A key part of the narrative reconstructs what happened in mid-December 1971. The book states that the Bohala massacre occurred on Monday evening, 13 December, and that two days later, on Thursday morning, 16 December, local people dug a large pit near the killing site and buried bodies that had been left exposed. It describes the condition of the bodies and the difficulty of identifying victims, emphasising how disposal and concealment were integral to the violence, not an accidental aftermath.

The book also anchors the atrocity to place and property, noting that the killing field stood on land owned by Khaliluddin, who is identified as the father of a later Union Parishad chairman, which underscores how genocide sites can sit in plain sight within everyday landscapes. This local anchoring matters for public history: it ties the genocide to a specific geography that can be mapped, visited, and protected, rather than being left as an abstract national tragedy.

In linking Bohala to genocide narratives, the book’s core argument is about pattern, purpose, and civilian targeting. The victims are described as defenceless people, killed in a deliberate operation at a designated site, followed by hurried burial as communities attempted to cope with fear, decomposition, and the risk of further violence. In this way, Bohala Genocide shows how the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide operated at micro-scale: through concentrated episodes of organised killing, the destruction of civilian security, and the long afterlife of trauma and contested memory that makes documentation itself a form of resistance.

Bohala GenocideDownload