The area comprising East Bengal, especially the Dhaka and Chittagong Divisions, had been witness to numerous instances of ethnic violence in the decades preceding the Partition.

In the last quarter of 1946, the Bengali Hindus of Noakhali and Tippera districts were subjected to a series of massacres, loot, arson, rape, abduction.

[1] Santosh Chatterjee, a Press Trust of India (PTI) correspondent, was imprisoned on 25 November 1949 without any charges and released after a month.

[3] On 10 December, a Muslim mob attacked the Puthia Rajbari Palace in Rajshahi Division and forcibly took possession of the house and its treasures.

From the autumn of 1949, the leaders began to succeed in implementing the Tebhaga principles through persuasion, coercion and in some cases, force.

The government of Pakistan responded to this incident by sending a 2,000 strong army contingent and the police and the Ansars on 7 January.

At 12 noon, a rally was held at the park where the speakers, some of the employees of the Secretariat, made fierce anti-Hindu speeches.

[20] On 24 February 1950, the U.S. ambassador to India wrote to the U.S. Secretary of State that between 600 and 1,000 Hindus were killed and thousands injured in Dhaka area.

[22] According to the press note of the government of East Bengal, two unidentified youths began to spread provocative rumours on the afternoon of 13 February in the town of Barisal.

The situation further deteriorated after 16 February when indiscriminate loot and arson of Hindu properties started in Gournadi, Jhalakati and Nalchiti under Sadar sub-division of Barisal district.

[23] In the river port of Muladi in Barisal District, several hundred Hindus took shelter in the police station after their homes were torched.

[24] In the village of Madhabpasha, under Babugunge police station presently Babuganj Upazila, two to three hundred Hindus were rounded up by a Muslim mob.

[27] Documentary filmmaker Supriyo Sen estimated that as many as 650,000 Hindus attempted to flee from Barisal to India and on their way were looted, killed and abducted.

Hindus were killed in Chittagong proper and adjoining areas such as Noapara, Chowdhury Hat, Patiya, Boalkhali and Sitakunda.

[13] After the pogroms, Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, the erstwhile Chief Minister of West Bengal went to visit Chittagong.

[13] The Hindu quarters of the town like Masterpara, Ukilpara, Daktarpara, Sahadebpur, Barahaipur and Sultanpur were attacked, looted and then set on fire.

[12] In the attacks, 45 Hindus were killed, 205 Hindu houses were burnt to ashes, and huge amounts of assets were looted.

[32] On 15 February, the house of Dinendra Chandra Deb Purakayastha in the village of Gangajal was looted and forcefully occupied by Muslim miscreants.

In Majigaon, under Fenchuganj police station, the houses of Ambika Kabiraj and Makhan Sen were looted and set on fire.

[33] The Pakistan armed forces and the Ansars drove away 20 Hindu families from Hariharpur village, very near to the border and adjacent to Balurghat in Indian Union.

They broke open the roofs of the houses and took away the corrugated iron sheets, along with large quantities of rice, paddy, mustard, jute and utensils.

[18] On 12 February, the Hindu passengers in the Akhaura - Bhairab Bazar rail route between Comilla and Mymensingh were massacred.

[23] On the same day, the Hindu passengers on board were attacked near Sararchar, a railway station between Bhairab Bazar and Kishoreganj.

[18] On 10 March, Muslim refugees who had arrived from West Bengal, led by the Ansars began to terrorize the Hindus.

[36] When the massacres were going on, the District Magistrate of Barisal asked Satindranath Sen, freedom fighter and Member of Legislative Assembly (M.L.A.)

On 18 February, Sen wrote to Liaquat Ali Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, appraising him of the situation in Barisal, without any avail.

[38] On 23 March, 30 leading Hindus, including 72-year-old Mohini Mohan Kar, the zamindar of Kulaura and prominent Congress leaders like Kripesh Chandra Bhattacharjee were arrested from Maulvibazar in Sylhet district.

[12] On 2 March 1950, Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, in a session in the Parliament, acknowledged that all correspondents attached to Indian newspapers and the PTI, working in East Pakistan were discredited and prevented from sending any news.

On 4 April 1950, Bidhan Chandra Roy stated that 2 million refugees from East Bengal had already taken shelter in India.

After seeing the plight of the Bengali Hindu refugees, he made an appeal to Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan to stop the atrocities.