On December 31st 1971 we left the kilo refugee camp as civilian Prisoners Of War of Indian Army and Civilians Under Protective Custody of the United Nations. We were taken under armed guard to the port city of Narayanganj near Dhaka and boarded the old “Rocket” steamer for an overnight perilous journey to Khulna. Here we were stuffed into train carriages like animals, there was not even room to stretch our legs. The windows were boarded with wood planks so we could not see outside. The train took seven arduous days to transport us to the prisoner’s camp in Roorki, in North Western India, where we were to spent the next 2 years imprisoned in cages.
This is a story of our day to day life in the camp as seen by the eyes of an 8 to 10 year-old boy during this 2 year period. While little has been written about the 1971 genocide and war, even less has been told about the fate of ninety-three thousand POWs of the aftermath of the war. This was the largest number of POWs taken during any war in history, with the exception of World War II. So, it is surprising that lives of these prisoners have not been documented at all and my book is the first such attempt to bring their story to the world.
