'The war was not over on December 16'

The nine-month war may have officially ceased on December 16, 1971, but I believe that it went on for many years after that.

There are countless war memoirs of those who have survived through the struggle. Let me tell you the story of a village.

On December 16, 1971 – a group of men in a village of this country nabbed a razakar and took him to meet a middle-aged-woman. They had tied his hands and made him stand in the woman's courtyard. One of them told the woman that this razakar was the killer of her son.

They then tied the man to a tree and gave a sharp weapon to the woman and said, you can punish him as you wish. She stabbed her son's killer to death.

You may want to believe that everything was solved on that day after the surrender. But let me tell you that thousands of women who were abducted, raped and kept hostage by the Pakistani Army for nine months could not go back to their families.

They were Biranganas, and their families would not accept them after they lost their honour. Their war did not end on that day, it went on till the day they died.

A young woman lost her husband on December 14, just two days ahead of the Victory Day. The man was a simple family man but his neighbours disliked him because he was a Hindu. He left behind two little kids and a young wife. The family's war did not end. They are still fighting, even after so many years.

Afsan Chowdhury, Researcher and Journalist