The magnitude of the tragedy hit us when we reached the town: hundreds of people had taken refuge in a school; others were outside the building in makeshift tents. The tiny dispensary was overflowing with the injured, most of them suffering from savage cuts inflicted by daos to the head, neck and upper torso. Other clinics had been set up, by the Red Cross, voluntary groups, by the army and paramilitary. Outside, people wept in pain and grief, from the hurt of physical injuries, or mourning the death of a relative or friend. A long queue of patients waited for treatment.

Those few hundred metres on either side of the road were a testament to brutality, hatred and bloodshed.

We drove past a dusty lane toward the dry rice-fields beyond Nellie. A young man came running toward us. When he learned that we were journalists, he began crying. ‘Sir, it is very bad, there are hundreds of bodies lying all over the fields,’ he said, introducing himself as Motalib Rahman. ‘Sir, I will take you there.’

We got off the vehicles and marched in single file behind Motalib, who wore a shirt and a green lungi, over the tiny paths by the dry land. We had walked for nearly a kilometre and I had begun to doubt the truthfulness of our guide. Were there any bodies? I snapped with the cynicism of a journalist. ‘Yes, sir,’ said Motalib, ‘just a little further, sir.’ A few minutes later, we saw a group of men with spades and shovels, digging a ditch. But it was not a ditch; it also a burial pit for the bodies that had suddenly begun to appear.

These were mostly children, although there were a few adults. Their heads and necks had been slashed and battered. We walked on, suddenly silent and grim. Were there more bodies? I asked Motalib. ‘The worst is across the canal, sir,’ he said. ‘You will not believe it until you see.’

A young woman was sitting under an umbrella near our path, obviously injured in the attack. She asked hoarsely for something. I bent to listen and saw the gashes on her face and neck—one blow had virtually sliced off her left ear and the other had damaged her throat. She spoke again: she was asking for water. I had none.

We walked on and came to the canal. A small dugout took us across. As I clambered up the small bank, my eyes were attacked by perhaps the most hideous scene that I have seen in all my years. An entire family was laid out at the top of the bank: parents and five children, of varying ages—the youngest was no older than an infant. Each one was dead, stabbed, slashed; the tiny one had been beheaded. Its head lay beside the body.