From 8 o'clock onwards, small groups of school students from all over Dhaka city marched towards the Dhaka University campus and assembling at the Arts faculty foyer of Dhaka University. College students' processions joined the school boys by 9 am. By 9:30 thousands of students from different university halls, Medical and Engineering College (now BUET) hostels streamed into the assembly via various routes.
By 11:30 the total number of students assembled reached nearly 20-25 thousands. "We demand Bangla be the state language" slogan filled the air. The armed police began patrolling the streets in front of the Arts Building and behind them the ‘tear gas' squads took position and waited for instruction.
In the midst of such a loaded situation Gaziul Huq stood on the table to assume his role as the president of the historic students' assembly. The first speaker was Samsul Huq (founder secretary of Awami league). As the representative of All Party State Language Action Council, he called on not to break the emergency Act 144. But before leaving the assembly he expressed his personal solidarity with the language movement. All on a sudden the news of police tear gas attack on one of the students' procession near Lalbagh spread in the assembly. This news climaxed the already explosive situation. In that instance both the convener and president of Dhaka University State Language Action Council, Abdul Matin and Gaziul Huq, were giving their speeches in support of breaking the emergency Act 144. The explosive crowd shouted their consent to Huq and Matin's decision. "We won't stand Act 144, we won't " slogans thundered the Dhaka University campus. In the midst of such a huge upheaval Abdus Samad Azad somehow detailed the plan for breaking the curfew. It was famous "procession of ten". He said if the massive crowd of 20-25 thousand goes out in procession it might lead to a horrible situation. So he suggested that instead of the big crowd a small procession of ten students would go out one after another. The proctor of Dhaka University agreed with him and ordered university staff to open the gate of the Arts faculty.
Thus started the famous "procession of ten". All participants of the procession voluntarily turned them in to the police. Habibur Rahman Shelly led the first group. Abdus Samad Azad the second group and Anwarul Huq and Obaidullah Huq Khans led the third group. The university girls formed the fourth group. Girls' group was followed by a number of boys' groups. It was an unprecedented sight of self sacrifice in defense of Bangla language. So far the whole protest movement was done peacefully.
But the police interference soon turned the peaceful situation into a violent one. After few processions went through the gate, the police, without any provocation on the students' part, started baton charge on the Arts faculty gate and the road in front it. The riot police, positioned a far, soon joined their mates by firing tear gas on the crowd. The whole Arts faculty was enveloped with the tear gas. The students ran towards the pond to wash their eyes. They washed their eyes and brought with them wet handkerchiefs to counter the police attack. Injured with tear gas shells the angry students stormed the cops with bricks and shoes. A tear shell hit Gaziul Huq and he was taken to the girls' common room unconscious.
The fight with the police continued till 2 pm in the Arts faculty area. The whole university campus turned into a battle ground. On one side the police attacked the students with batons and tear gas. The students countered them with bricks and stones. Cornered by the brutally aggressive police forces, the students broke the wall between arts faculty and the medical college. Thus the fight then spread to the medical and engineering college areas. A large number of students were injured by police baton and tear gas charge.
The fight between the students and the police forces went on and on. But the situation reached its darkest phase when, around 3 pm, a group of armed police, instructed by district magistrate Koreshi, sprang out from behind the shop opposite to Dhaka Medical College hostel and took position in the hostel ground and opened fire. Some bodies fell on the streets, streaming blood dyed the roads with crimson hue. Some precious young lives turned into Bangla alphabet. In the tear gas afflicted murky ground of Dhaka University the fight between
the cops and students went on unaware of the great sacrifice of human lives, first in human history, for the defense of the mother tongue.
Despite brutal firing and tear gas attack, the police could not occupy the medical college hostel. The students kept them at bay by throwing bricks. Soon the news of police shooting the students spread like thunderbolt. Life in Dhaka turned into a standstill. Thousands of people streamed into the Dhaka medical hospital to pay their tribute to the martyrs. Shocked and grief-struck their face turned stone, amber in their hearts.
The bodies of the dead and the injured were taken to the Dhaka medical hospital. Doctors and nurses rushed into the emergency department to save their lives. One of the bodies was unidentifiable because the head was blown away. Later it was identified as martyr Barkat's dead body. Mourning became the East Bangla.
Later that evening the dead bodies were taken to the morgue. As the police snatched few unidentified dead bodies from the teargas afflicted public earlier that afternoon, the students, fearing that the police might try to do it again, guarded the morgue gate. But in the dead of the night, a group of armed commando troops, escorted by the police, stormed the morgue gate and forcibly took the dead bodies at the gun point. But a few die-hard students followed the military jeeps on foot and watched them dumping the dead bodies in the nearby Ajimpur cemetery. As soon as the army left the cemetery, the students came out of their hidings and marked the spots where the martyrs were dumped. The following morning thousands of people went to the cemetery and paid their tributes to the martyrs of Bangla language movement.
The Bangla language movement was essentially conceived and led by the Bangalee students. Since this movement onwards, students' role in the national politics has been central. Unlike the political parties, the students' movement always won the indiscriminate sympathy and support of the masses. In the language movement the roles of the politicians were insignificant (many top political leaders including Sheikh Mujib were imprisoned before the movement). They could not direct the students' emotions and passions for nationalist political achievements.
The Bangalee intelligentsia (the secular and liberal intellectuals, most of them were black listed by the Pakistani authority and brutally murdered by the collaborators of Pakistan army, the Razakars, Al-Badard and other militant Islamic fundamentalists just a week before the independence. Please visit Liberation War, Martyr Intelligentsia, Razakars and War Criminals pages for details) had a great contribution in this movement. Conservative parties like Muslim League, Jamat and other Islamic parties always opposed, and even tried to crash, the nationalistic movements. After independence, all the major political parties, whether democratic or military, tried to politicize the Bangla language day.
The traditional morning rallies to the language monument are often disrupted by the fight between the opposing political parties to place the photos of their party leaders on the top of the monument. Islamic parties always opposed the Bangla Language Day and tried to persuade the Muslims from rallying and offering flowers to the Shaheed Minar (Martyrs' Monument) by interpreting it as idol worship. Even in some areas where the Jamatis dominate, they attempted to destroy the monuments. Despite all the mean politics about the language movement and its legacy, Ekushay February will forever inspire the Bangalees to defend and love their sweet mother tongue- Bangla.