Noakhali Genocide

Noakhali genocide (Bengali: নোয়াখালী গণহত্যা), also known as the Noakhali Carnage, was a series of massacres, rapes, abductions and forced conversions of Hindus and looting and arson of Hindu properties, perpetrated by the Muslim community in the districts of Noakhali and Tipperah in the Chittagong Division of Bengal in October–November 1946, a year before India's independence from British rule. It affected the areas under the Ramganj, Begumganj, Raipur, Lakshmipur, Chhagalnaiya and Sandwip police stations in Noakhali district and the areas under Hajiganj, Faridganj, Chandpur, Laksham and Chauddagram police stations in Tipperah district, a total area of more than 2,000 square miles.

The massacre of the Hindu population started on 10 October, on the day of Kojagari Lakshmi Puja, and continued unabated for about a week. It is estimated that over 5,000 Hindus were killed, hundreds of Hindu women were raped and thousands of Hindu men and women were forcibly converted to Islam. Around 50,000 to 75,000 survivors were sheltered in temporary relief camps in Comilla, Chandpur, Agartala and other places. Apart from that, around 50,000 Hindus that remained marooned in the affected areas were under the strict surveillance of the Muslim hooligans, where the administration had to say. In some areas, the Hindus had to obtain permits from the Muslim leaders in order to travel outside their villages. The forcibly converted Hindus were coerced to give written declaration that they have converted to Islam on their own free will. Sometimes they were confined in houses not their own and only allowed to be in their own house, when an official party came for inspection. The Hindus were forced to pay subscription to the Muslim League and pay jiziyah, the protection tax paid by zimmis in an Islamic state.

Haran Chandra Ghosh Choudhuri, the only Hindu representative to Bengal Legislative Assembly from the district of Noakhali, described the incidents as the organised fury of the Muslim mob. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta and the former Finance Minister of Bengal, dismissed the argument that the Noakhali incidents were ordinary communal riots. He described the events as a planned and concerted attack by the majority community on the minority community.

Mohandas Gandhi camped in Noakhali for four months and toured the district in a mission to restore peace and communal harmony. However, the peace mission failed to restore confidence among the survivors, who couldn't be permanently rehabilitated in their villages. In the meanwhile, the Congress leadership accepted the Partition of India and the peace mission and other relief camps were abandoned. The majority of the survivors migrated to West Bengal, Tripura and Assam.