A senior high school teacher from Lalmohon in Bhola district approached The Daily Star office in Dhaka last week. The teacher, whose name is withheld for his safety, had fled his home in the face of atrocities unleashed by a group of people claiming to be ruling party men in his village. He had a series of stories to tell.

He narrated how Hindu women, numbering in hundreds, whose ages ranged between eight and 70, were raped on the night of October 2 in a village called Annada Prashad, also known as GM Bazaar (Guno Moni Bazaar), under Lord Hardinge Union of Lalmohon police station in Bhola district. He also said how nearly all the Hindu houses in Annada Prashad were systematically looted.

Many Hindus had fled the area and the ones, who had nowhere to go, were forced to pay protection money and lived in extreme fear. The Daily Star decided to investigate this harrowing story and immediately dispatched a team of staff correspondents to the region.

The Star team left by a motor vessel to Lalmohon, equipped with two motorbikes. On the six-day trip from Dhaka the team reached Lalmohon on October 31. It then proceeded to Annada Prashad. Then to Char Fasson. From there it crossed the Meghna to reach Char Kukri Mukri. Then it returned to Gazaria in Lalmohon. It then went to Bhola district town before coming to Barisal the next day. From Barisal it returned to Dhaka on a motor vessel.

Heavy overnight rain had turned the roads muddy and slippery. Overcast sky still sent intermittent drizzles. Police officials at Lalmohon kept busy, for the Minister for Jute, the just re-elected MP from the area, Major (retd) Hafizuddin, Bir Bikram, would visit his constituency for the first time since the October 1 general election. Officer-in-Charge of the police station Mohammad Tofazzal Hossain said he took over only two days before the election.

It is a remote area about 30 kilometres away from the nearest town, said Hossain when asked about Annada Prashad, "We heard about some incidents there but except in one case of rape of a eight-year old girl, we received no complaint whatsoever. We have set up a police post there."

"We have arrested Ibrahim Khalil Selim, son of Yasin Master, one of the six accused in Rita Rani rape incident," Lalmohon's police chief said.

"Opportunists seeking vengeance unleashed terror on the minority community there just after the election, but believe me, nobody lodged any other formal complaint," Hossain repeated.

The potholed road to Annada Prashad through Kartar Hat, Roy Chand and Lord Hardinge (named after the then Viceroy of India), ended at a small locality called Kashmir. From here, a muddy earthen road wound its way to Annada Prashad, about seven kilometres to the north.

At exactly 10:30am on October 31, the Daily Star team of four arrived at GM Bazaar on two motorbikes. Annada Prashad looked pristine, surrounded by lush green paddy fields half submerged by floodwater. Clusters of houses stood amid paddy fields and bamboo groves.

The air smelt sweet of earth and rotting straw. The small bazaar, consisting of about 20 separate shops, was almost deserted. But soon a group of curious onlookers gathered at the site where we stood. Some men sat on wooden benches near by and whispered to one another, occasionally pointing their forefingers at us. Tension was visible in their faces.

A former chairman of the Union and a businessman, Abdul Kader said that the village had about 2,200 Hindu voters and many of them had left for unknown places over the last one month since the election.

Kader himself fell victim to atrocities with his house and business ransacked and destroyed about a month ago. Refusing to flee, Kader clung to his business and partially rebuilt his house keeping silent about everything that happened around him. Kader was a rare non-Hindu victim of the area. He was an Awami League activist.

At a Hindu house near the Bazaar, the first stories of rape, assault and looting started to emerge. The female members of the house begged for anonymity and burst into tears.

The terrified inmates said they had just paid Tk 10,000 in protection money to remain in their own house, where they had lived for generations. They told the Daily Star team how the perpetrators looted literally everything they found, including lungi, gamchha, quilts, saris, cooking utensils, plates, pitchers, rice in stock, pigeons, chickens, cows, goats, ornaments and cash. When the attacks happened, they - men, women and children - hid in nearby paddy fields infested with large water leeches.

The story began at around 3:30 in the morning of October 2. Within hours of the election, while the results were still being aired, several Hindu houses in the southern side of the village came under attack.

Gangs of miscreants moved onto the northern side and looted valuables from Hindu houses. As the day moved on and the results of the election became clear, the intensity of the attacks increased. By noon the Hindu community of Annada Prashad became extremely fearful. Women and children left their homes and started to look for refuge.

They all narrated how up to 150 armed perpetrators swooped on the isolated Bentor Bari at around 10:30pm, where more than 100 women and children took refuge during the day. They had mistakenly assumed that the isolation of Bentor Bari and its difficult accessibility would save them from the attackers. "In fact the situation started to change at around 12 noon of the election day, when armed men entered the Ranoda Proshad voting centre and took over charge," said a woman. She added that within the four-kilometre radius of the village, every Hindu house was raided and looted on October 2 and many incidents of rape, torture took place.

They said known faces of the area such as Shahabuddin, Mizan, Farid, Faizullah, Yasin Master and his sons Selim (arrested on charges of raping eight-year old Rita Rani) and Belal, Saiful, Zakir the rickshaw-puller, Abu, Dulal, Mosharraf, Shaheen and Tofael were leading the attacks. More than a hundred strangers from Lalmohon and nearby villages also joined the attackers on the day. The women cited names of others, their relatives and friends who were raped.

The Daily Star correspondents talked to over 100 women at different places of the village who, in their narration of what had happened, were strikingly and frighteningly similar. Most said the attackers had forcibly taken away their nakful (nose rings). They symbolised losing their nakful with rape and assault on them. For instance, whenever this correspondent asked an individual how many men attacked her, she would burst into tears and cite a number and say, two or three or four men took her nakful away.

Not all women however were narrating rape with euphemisms. Landless M R Das (not her real name), about 38 and a widow with three children, said with tears flowing down her cheeks that eleven men gang raped her first in her house within a week after the caretaker government took office. Fearing attack, MR had already sent her two daughters to her parent's house in Dhaka.

On the night of October 2, a gang of men broke into her house and raped her, while her son cried. "I begged for a respite, I told them I needed to drink water but they went on and on. My son cried for help but who would help, everybody was running away," said MR, almost hysterical and crying.

While the women talked to the Daily Star correspondents, children were sent out to keep vigil. A loudspeaker mounted on a rickshaw moved slowly on the earthen road nearby and announced the arrival of Hafizuddin, the MP, at Lord Hardinge. The announcer urged the Hindu community in particular to join Hafizuddin in the meeting for discussion.

About half a kilometre in the north, 75-year-old Luxmi Kanta Das and his wife Radha Rani about 40, said when the attackers came, all their neighbours started to run.

Some women ran in the paddy fields, some hid inside the betel leaf shed and some were caught by the attackers and robbed of their nakful, Radha Rani said defying her husband Luxmi Kanta's plea not to talk. Radha Rani said, after the attackers caught her they tried to strip her near the village pond. But she grabbed a large stick and defended her. She said she was nonetheless overpowered and robbed of her nakful.

Radha Rani's 13-year-old daughter-in-law, Tripti Rani came forward to tell what had happened to her. Shy and still childish and completely unaware of her status of a housewife, living with in-laws, Tripti Rani tearfully said she was caught by five men in the betel leaf shed and robbed of her nakful.

Josna Rani, Priti Rani, Lipi Bala, Thaku Rani, Dhaleswari and many others narrated in deep sorrow and unrelenting tears how they had lost their nakful and everything they possessed. Many said during the attacks the perpetrators accused them of voting for the Awami League. Those who survived the onslaught said for hours they lay in the paddy fields bitten by dozens of leeches, too weak to move.

As more men and women arrived at Luxmi Kanta's house to tell their stories, suddenly everyone went mum and looked terrified. Hardly ten feet away stood a young man in lungi who stared at the crowd. The crowd of men and women whispered that the man in lungi was none other than Belal, wanted on charges of raping Rita Rani, looting, physical assault, masterminding the attacks on innocent villagers and so on. Soon, the notorious criminal slowly walked off the scene without saying a word.

Bentor Bari, about 1.5 kilometres southward from Luxmi Kanta's house was extremely difficult to reach. From the main earthen road of the village, there is no road leading to this cluster of houses, situated in the middle of paddy fields about a kilometre to the south. One has to wade through waist-deep water rich in fish and large water leeches.

For the inmates of Bentor Bari and more than 100 who took refuge there, the night of October 2 represents a nightmare that they could never probably forget. Amalendu Das a grocer from Bentor Bari explained why so many people took refuge in their house on the day. During disturbances in 1991 over Babri Mosque, all houses belonging to rich Hindus were looted and torched, they did not touch Bentor Bari because the people living here are very, very poor and the house is so isolated, Amalendu said.

Following overnight attacks on all the Hindu houses in Annada Prashad, many families started to wade through the water towards Bentor Bari at around 2:00pm. The perpetrators simply watched from far throughout the day as the desperate Hindus took refuge inside the cluster of about 15 dwellings.

Promod Chandra Das of Bentor Bari said that he and his neighbours had already sent most of their family members elsewhere on October 2. As soon as the refugees started to arrive, about eight of their friends formed a vigil group.

"At around 10:30pm we suddenly saw that about 150 people were wading toward Bentor Bari from the northern side. We shouted at them asking about their identity but they kept silent. When they came near the house, we realised we were helplessly outnumbered, we asked the women to run for cover and then we started to run away through the paddy fields," Promod said.

The following few hours of the night represented savagery for children and women, trying to flee. A group of perpetrators concentrated on looting, another chased the children and women in the paddy fields caught and dragged them on to the land and gang raped them.

Women showed wounds of beating and assault on their bodies, including spots of leech bites. In the Bentor Bari, rape was indiscriminate during the night that included eight-year-old Rita Rani and 70-year-old Paru Bala.

"You know the policemen who are now camping at the Vaskor Bari are friends of the attackers, they were invited by the rapists and we often find them together having friendly talks," said a woman.

At Vaskor Bari about 500 metres away from Bentor Bari, scores of women waited to tell similar stories of torture, rape and looting. Some of the women came closer to whisper the message of police's friendship with the criminals.

Havildar Yusuf and his nine constables were sleeping inside the temporary house, now turned police camp at around 3:30pm. The house had an earthen idol of goddess Luxmi as it was the day of the Luxmi puja. But there was nobody else to observe the puja. Yusuf denied that he had anything to do with the criminals but said he had heard about the atrocities on Hindus in the area.

He said the police post was set up on October 5 and none of the victims lodged any complaint with the police. When asked how Belal and four others, wanted in Rita Rani rape case, were roaming freely in the area, the Havildar replied he did not receive any directive from the higher authorities to arrest anyone.

Mohammad Faruk Hossain, a constable, said he had heard that over 200 women were raped in the village after the election.

At around 4:00pm, about 200 men gathered at GM Bazaar. Muslims and Hindu men were on their way to Lord Hardinge to hear the new MP. Some Muslim men expressed their frustration and said the administration did nothing to arrest the criminals, who now think that they got away with the barbaric crimes.

"Let me tell you," said a Muslim villager, "The same thing will happen here as soon as the police go away. The criminals are just waiting."

He added that every Hindu family living in the village is subjected to paying protection money.

At Lord Hardinge, about an hour later, the new MP was seen arriving, escorted by at least 50 motor bikes ridden by tough youths.

In Bhola, next day, the Deputy Commissioner Kabir Mohammad Ashraf Uddin said that action could not be taken because there was nobody complaining about the alleged atrocities.

"In Chowmohini Bazaar, the other day for instance, 106 shops were torched by miscreants but when we arrived, there was not a single person who would come forward to say what had happened or formally lodge a complaint," Ashraf Uddin said.

"The attacks on the Hindu community is not communal but purely political," Ashraf Uddin added. "I shall again talk to the Police Super and if necessary we shall visit the are a again."