Indomitable March: Awami League takes de facto control
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman issued a statement on March 4, 1971, requesting that government and non-government offices where employees had not yet been paid remain open between 2:30pm and 4:30pm to disburse salaries during the next two days of the hartal.
Issuing these directives was the first step towards the Awami League taking on the role of a de facto government in the eastern wing.
A nationwide hartal was observed for three days into the non-cooperation movement. Six people were killed in Khulna in an army attack. In Chattogram, the death toll rose to 121 in two days.
'CAN PAKISTAN BE SAVED?'
On the night of March 4, 1971, Major General Rao Farman Ali, then military adviser to the governor of East Pakistan, visited Bangabandhu at his Dhanmondi residence and asked, "Can Pakistan be saved?"
Sheikh Mujib replied in the affirmative and said, "It can be saved if somebody listens to us. So many people are being killed by the army. They listen to [Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto. They don't listen to me." [ Rao Farman Ali, How Pakistan Got Divided, OUP 2017]
RISE OF 'DHAKA BETAR KENDRA'
The state-run Radio Pakistan in Dhaka started broadcasting as Dhaka Betar Kendra all directives issued by the Awami League and played patriotic songs by Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam.
A group of radio artists announced that as long as the conspiracy against democracy continued, they would not broadcast as Radio Pakistan.
Comments