A group of young pro-liberation protestors at Dhaka University burnt the Pak flag following a meeting held in the afternoon of November 16, to register their anger against the visiting Pakistani cricketers. The visitors are scheduled to play a number of games after a long time. The cause of the local fury: someone, perhaps coach Saqlain Mushtaque, the physio or other staff accompanying the players had put up the Pakistani flag while practicing at the nets, shortly after their arrival in Bangladesh. As visuals of their practice went viral on social media, there was instant reaction from large sections of offended local viewers.

Bangladeshis, who achieved their independence after a genocidal attack carried out by the Pak army against Bengalis and a bitter civil war that almost destroyed the country’s eastern province, are extra-sensitive while dealing with Pakistanis. Matters have not improved bilaterally as Pakistan refuses to apologise for what its leaders and the army had done in the East in 1970-71. Diplomatic relations have been recently established after a long cooling off period.

Dhaka-based media accounts quote a relatively low ranked Pakistani official as saying that the raising of the flag on Bangladeshi soil did not mean anything. It was a practice that coach Saqlain followed wherever the team went, only to energise the players. If the Pak team authorities proffered his words to serve as an explanation to assuage offended local sentiments, it did not carry much weight.

Most Bangladeshis participating in TV panel discussions - some excerpts are being shown by select channels in Kolkata said that there was simply no business for the Pakistanis to display their flag in Bangladesh in a casual, even arrogant, manner! Players and their officials should have understood they were now on foreign soil. In Bangladesh, according to existing protocol, foreign flags are never displayed/put up casually except at ceremonial functions. If at all such flag had to be flown, putting up the Bangladeshi flag alongside was de rigueur.

Observers feel that an official explanation from Pakistani diplomats or high officials could have defused pent up tensions. Somehow there was none.

As the controversy snowballed and more people got involved in arguments, members (mostly students and youths) of the Bangladesh Muktiyuddha Mancha (BMM) discussed the issue. Later they organised a protest rally addressed by several prominent speakers in the University campus. Many saw this as an appropriate response on part of the students.

Students, professors and lecturers of Dhaka University played a major role in terms of their total support and participation in the civil war through 1970-71. They made large sacrifices, as many unarmed young students and youths living in the college/university hostels were rounded up and brutally slaughtered by soldiers. Their professors and teachers who lived nearby were not spared either. Most were hunted down, attacked during the nights in their homes, as Gen Yahya Khan-declared crackdown in the East began from March 1970 onwards.

BMM president Aminul Islam and general secretary Mohamad Ali Mamun conducted the proceedings, which concluded with the Pak flag being burnt amidst slogan shouting and condemnation of the mass murderers of 1970-71. Interestingly, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) also came in for strong condemnation, for its lack of initiative in the matter and not issuing a strong formal protest to the visiting Pak team and officials. One speaker asked for a public explanation from him for his silence over what most people viewed as an insensitive public affront. ‘Have the Pakistanis not learnt anything from their own history’ was a common question among people in Dhaka and elsewhere.

Islam defended the decision to burn the Pak flag, saying, as quoted by Bangladeshi media,’We did this to let the world know that there are enough people in Bangladesh like us who hate Pakistan!’

A senior Kolkata-based sports journalist had a different take on the happenings in Bangladesh. ‘In many ways, the fault lies with Pakistan, although burning their flag might have been an extreme step. The other day, Waqar Younus, the eminent Pakistani fast bowler, said publicly after India lost to his team, that it had pleased him no end to see Pakistani players perform the namaz on the field in front of Hindus! Again, a Pakistani Minister had announced over Pak TV that the victory belonged to Islam, not just to a team! In the process both forgot that India had beaten their 12 teams earlier in the shorter version of the game, before Pakistan finally won in 2021! Clearly Pakistanis tend to communalise and politicise everything that happens, even when there is absolutely no need for it. It is their general failure in most areas of life that spawns such a mindset. No wonder Bangladeshis, known to be somewhat more volatile on occasions, could not stand their ways and gave it back to them with compound interest this time ' he said. (IPA Service)