THE dates are muddled and my memories of the place are at times vague and confused, but a lifetime ago, my family and I lived in East Pakistan. I went to school there, learned about life from wise teachers, made wonderful friends and wallowed in the languid beauty of a truly golden land.

It was a privileged existence. We were in Dhaka for about three to four years and I loved every minute of it. I delighted in the magic of the city, the mysterious Sunderband forests, the nooks and crannies of our massive old house, the huge garden, the loving friends and the hardworking teachers.

We left long before the 1971 creation of Bangladesh. I remember being desolate at leaving my school, my friends and many other things. Sad letters were exchanged. I went back once to see everyone, but then slowly there was less and less time for the past. Life speeded up as I adjusted to a new life and new friends. East Pakistan became a memory.

Until the day we were all jolted awake by the horrors of 1971. The explosion of ethnic violence seemed abrupt and sudden although of course it was not. Politicians from both East and West Pakistan had been bickering for months even as the generals planned war. Emotions were high on all sides. With arms readily available, conflict was inevitable.

Watching events from Islamabad, it was difficult to make sense of what was happening and why. How could things go so horribly wrong? Why didn’t the politicians compromise and the generals stop the killings? How could Pakistani soldiers be given a free hand to commit mass killings, ethnic cleansing and rape? What kind of people allow their fellow citizens to be massacred, humiliated and turned into refugees?

Those and other questions have haunted — and angered — me for years. I am still amazed at how quickly after the war ‘West’ Pakistanis went about their business as if the violent separation had never happened. New political leaders were sworn in, the generals faced no retribution, and nobody ever said ‘sorry’. Having committed the worst crimes in East Pakistan, the Pakistani army still claimed to be the ‘guardians’ of the nation.

I have long felt betrayed by this absence of truth and amazed at Pakistan’s failure to acknowledge the devastation it wreaked on its own people. I have searched for answers but to no avail.

Then out of the blue one day, I received a message in my inbox from Aquila Ismail, a dear and much loved school friend from my years in East Pakistan. Aquila was, as always, to the point. Her book Of Martyrs and Marigolds had just been published, she told me.

The book was based on her experience as an Urdu-speaking Pakistani —“all of us were called Biharis”, she said — during the days of the Bangladesh liberation movement. Much has been written, as it should have been, about the creation of Bangladesh vis-à-vis the Pakistani army’s shameful conduct. However, lost in the narrative is the mention of the atrocities committed by the Mukti Bahini on the Urdu-speaking people who had migrated to East Pakistan in 1947, Aquila said, adding that she wanted to put on record this aspect of the history of Bangladesh.

“Read it and tell me what you think,” she said.

Of course I ordered the book immediately. And then read it slowly and carefully over the Easter break. Suddenly, I was reliving the by now almost forgotten years of life in East Pakistan. The school, the teachers and the pupils. Friendships and rivalries, failures and successes. And at the end, I shed tears — as I am sure many others have — at Aquila’s account of the trials and horrors undergone by the so-called ‘Biharis’ of East Pakistan.

I confess that for most of my life I have carried a burden of sorrow at the violence unleashed by the army on the people of East Pakistan. But Aquila’s harrowing stories of the massacre of Urdu-speaking citizens by the Bangladesh Mukti Bahini had sadly fallen unheard and neglected through the net. I now wept at my ignorance of these events.

I knew awful things had happened — but Aquila’s book was like an electric shock, waking me up to the reality surrounding the creation of Bangladesh — the many ways in which men and women turned suddenly from heroes to villains, from good neighbours to murderers and assassins.

The world has witnessed many other horrific civil wars since 1971, including the conflicts that tore apart the former Yugoslavia and the genocides in Central Africa. There have been repeated pledges by the international community to ‘never, ever again’ watch passively as innocent people are slaughtered.

But we have indeed been bystanders — albeit vocal ones — as the Syrian government has killed its people. Before that, the international community did intervene in Libya but only after many hundreds had been killed.

Human rights abuses take place every day in Bahrain, Yemen, Somalia, China. In Pakistan, the daily killings continue unabated.

Today, Bangladesh is a rising economic power, with a confident and dynamic people which is determined to be part of the new world order. But in order to really move ahead as nations, unencumbered and free of the past, both Pakistan and Bangladesh must recognise the horrors they inflicted on innocent people on both sides of the ethnic divide.

Most importantly, both countries must take immediate steps to ease the plight of the thousands of stateless ‘Biharis’ who, years after the 1971 war, continue to live in Bangladesh in refugee camps set up by the International Red Cross.

The horrors of 1971 cannot be undone. But the so-called stranded Pakistanis must be given a proper home.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels.