Given Office Duties
Talking in a soft, almost unemotional voice, he gave this account:
After the West Pakistani officers left the commander's office and headed for the armory to get their weapons, the three unarmed Bengali officers were called in and placed under what amounted to house arrest, although the commander said they were being given office duties.
That night, which they were made to spend in the room rtext to the commander's Dabir could not sleep. At 1 a.m. seven or eight shots were fired somewhere in the compound.
During the next three days, as Dabir and the two others, both captains, answered telephones and shuffled papers under the watch of sentries, they heard the sounds of machine-gun, small-arms and artillery fire in the distance.
Through a window they saw the 60 Bengali soldiers of the regiment being taken off behind a building, their hands in the air, by West Pakistani troops. Then the three heard a sustained burst of firing and assumed that the Bengalis had been killed.
All pretense was dropped on March 29 and the three officers were locked in a room together. They passed the night in fear.
On the afternoon of the 30th a West Pakistani officer walked up to the door and broke the glass with the barrel of a sub-machine gun.
One Bengali captain fell to his knees and begged for mercy. The answer was a burst of fire. The West Pakistani then fired a second burst into the other captain.
Dabir pressed himself against the wall next to the door. The West Pakistani tried the locked door, cursed and went away for key.
Dabir threw himself under his and covered his head with his hands. The man returned. “I shrieked,” Dabir said. “He fired. I felt a bullet hit me. I made a noise as if I was dying. He stopped firing thinking I was dead, and went a way. “
Poked and Prodded
One bullet had struck Dabir's right wrist, another had grazed his check and a third had ripped his shirt up the back. He rubbed blood from his wrist over his face and held his breath when other officers returned to make sure all three were dead.
The West Pakistanis poked and prodded until they were satisfied. For the next two and a half hours soldiers kept coming into the room to view the spectacle. A Punjabi sergeant kicked the bodies of the two captains. Each time Dabir desperately held his breath.
“Time passed,” Dabir continued. “The blood dried and flies gathered on my wound. The smell was bad."
