It was my first night in Bangladesh Military Academy. Just After entering the hall, Senior cadets started torturing us. I puked five times while hanging upside down.We had to roll and frog jump on thorn. There was blood all over my body. My corporal was famous in the battalion for his sadistic mentality. I was surprised after watching him first.
A foreigner of light skin. Many cadets from outside come to Bangladesh Military academy.
He was the first i met. Tall like a tree, skinny, lighter skin looks like suffering from anemia, brown hair, brownish yellow eye. Mediterranean look.I came to know later- his name was Meher, Cussed but physically tough. from Palestine.
Meher used to harass us a lot. Such as after excessive work we used to eat like Somalian Refugee. He used to come and shout " first timers i have lost ten taka near white wall, Go and find it."
with his peculiar ARABINGLISH ( pronunciation of T and D).. We had to leave our meal and find that taka. One day Ali Became very annoyed and said " sir forget ten taka, its to cheap, we can give you thousand Bucks" We started to tremble in fear of punishment. Suddenly he began to laugh. From that day he became very close of our batch.
Meher was toughest in our academy... He was over 6 feet. There was a board in our BMA ground of Mile Running test Point where record holders names were written. Gentleman cadet Meher was the record holder of 1 mile and 2 mile running. Later another boy from our Jahangir Company broke his 1 mile record in assault course. Assault course was running over blockades with Rifle on shoulder and it ended with firing 10 rounds on firing range. Maher regained his record holding title by defeating that boy in his last day of assault training.
For some unknown reasons i had very good relation with him. I was weak in running.
He used to help me a lot- how to bend forward, hand position, foot movement, preserving energy while running! We used too hate Rain due to itching from Mud, but he loved rain most probably because there was not enough rain in Palestine
Yasir arafat made a pact with Bangladesh Government under which 30/35 Palestinians were sent to Chittagong that year. But they were not like us. They have seen so much blood, Gun and tank from their childhood. They were not suitable for our conventional military training. BMA was too much annoyed with them for their stubbornness, breaking of discipline and chain of command... Only 7 made it into BMA, rest of others were sent back home. BMA had to go through various problem for them. They were not only cussed but also too much weak in English and study.
Meher never told us about his family. his father was a doctor and used to live in Gaza. There
was a huge Palestinian flag in his room, he used to hate Israel a lot.
After Completion of training, Cadets were leaving BMA to join their unit. But Palestinian cadets had to wait for some days in the academy.Last time i saw him, he was wearing Second lieutenant uniform of East Bengal Regiment.
Mossad is a very famous and effective organization... They had idea of Bangladeshi trained Palestinian cadets. In their two years stay in Bangladesh they were ordered to move carefully. They were safe inside BMA and when in Dhaka they had to stay inside Embassy.
Leaving Bangladesh they first went to Lebanon. But Just After entering into Palestine 6 of them were killed by Mossad. The remaining one " Meher" was caught 6 months later and was shot.
Bangladesh Military Academy declared one day mourning for the incident...
