The fire began to increase in the vicinity of the hotel and at 1 A. M. it seemed to became very heavy all over the city.
At 1:25 A. M. the phones at the hotel went dead, shut down by order of the military guard outside. The lights on the telegraph office tower went out at about the same time. Heavy automatic-weapons fire could be heard in the university area and other district.
Attack at Shopping Bazaar
At about 2:15 A.M. a jeep with a mounted machine gun drove by the front of the hotel, turned left on Mymensingh Road and stopped in front of a shopping bazaar with its gun trained on the second floor windows. A dozen soldiers on foot joined those on the jeep, one group carrying some kind of rocket piece.
From the second floor suddenly came cries of “Bengalis, united!" and soldiers opened fire with the machine gun, spraying the building indiscriminately. The soldier then started moving down an alley adjacent to the bazaar, firing into and then overturning cars that were blocking the alley. The scene was lit by the soldier's flashlights, and to the newsmen watching from the 10th floor of the Intercontinental, it was an incredible drama.
As the soldiers were firing down the alley, a group of about 15 or 20 young Bengalis started along the road toward them, from about 200 yards off. They were shouting in defiance at the soldiers, but seemed unarmed and their hands appeared empty.
The machine gun on the jeep swung around toward them and opened fire. Soldiers with automatic rifles joined in. The Bengalis youths scattered into the shadows on both sides of the road. It was impossible to tell whether any had been wounded or killed.
The soldiers then turned their attention back to the alley. They set a spare parts garage on fire and then moved on to what was apparently their main objective the office and press of the People, an English-language daily paper that had strongly supported Sheik Mujib and ridiculed the army.
Shouting in Urdu, the language of West Pakistan, the soldiers warned any persons inside that unless they surrendered they would be shot. There was no answer and no one emerged. The troops then fired a rocket into the building and followed this with small arms fire and machine-guns bursts. Then they set fire to the building and began Smashing the press and other equipment.
Moving farther along, they set ablaze all the shops and shacks behind the bazaar and soon the flames were climbing high above the two-storey building.
Shortly after 4 A. M. the shouting eased somewhat, but artillery rounds machinegun bursts could be heard occasionally, Tracer bullets from a long way off flew by the hotel.
At 4:45 A.M., another big fire blazed, in the direction of the East Pakistan Rifles headquarters.
At 5:45, in the hazy light of dawn six Chinese-made T-51 light tanks soldiers riding on them rumbled into the city and began patrolling main thoroughfares.
