Brigadier Iskandar

Brigadier Iskandar is the military officer who introduces recruits to the covert CUTIA program and later directs its deployment in Dacca. He turns an eccentric scheme of men and dogs into an instrument of political repression: the recruits are taught to obey without question, disguised as civilians, and sent to hunt people designated undesirable. His clipped commands and polished uniform embody the conversion of state policy into routine orders, even as the consequences of those orders become impossible to mistake.

Identity and Introduction

Iskandar first appears on the CUTIA parade ground, yelling at new recruits Ayooba Baloch, Farooq Rashid, and Shaheed Dar that they are now a unit. Slapping his swagger stick against his thigh, he turns on his heels and leaves them in the mountain air. Their introduction to the organization is not an explanation of its purpose so much as an abrupt assignment: the batman Lala Moin tells them they are the men who get the man-dog.

That theatrical beginning sets the pattern for Iskandar’s authority. He announces the recruits’ new identity with a command, then leaves the meaning of their work to be supplied through a rigid training routine. The soldiers initially imagine espionage and combat against India; the formal instruction that follows gives their task a more ominous domestic target.

The CUTIA Program

During a briefing in a hut with a blackboard, Iskandar polishes his knuckles on his lapels while Sergeant-Major Najmuddin conducts a question-and-answer lesson. The training defines each canine unit as three people and one dog, operating without officers on the scene and expected to make their own decisions. That apparent independence is bounded by a demand for self-discipline and unquestioning obedience: the recruits are told to seek relentlessly and arrest without remorse.

The targets are described not as people identified by specific crimes but as elusive, well-disguised elements who might be anyone. The supposed threats listed in the briefing include attacks on family life, religion, landowners, and film censorship; the declared danger is the destruction of the state, anarchy, or foreign domination. With elections approaching and civilian rule anticipated, the unit’s stated purpose is to root out such undesirables. The Defense of Pakistan Rules provide the means: detention incommunicado for six months, renewable for another six. The lesson ends by naming the recruits CUTIA Unit 22 and ordering she-dog badges sewn onto their lapels; the acronym itself means bitch.

The contrast between the unit’s official language and its methods is central to Iskandar’s command. A bureaucratic script turns vague political suspicions into operational categories, and a legal provision gives covert seizure the appearance of procedure. The recruits are trained to treat the absence of clear limits not as a reason for judgment, but as a reason to obey.

Deployment to Dacca

On March 15, 1971, twenty CUTIA units assemble for orders. Iskandar is present as Najmuddin instructs the men to remove their uniforms. Sixty-one men and nineteen dogs comply: the dogs lose their identifying collars, while the soldiers exchange military dress for an assortment of civilian clothes issued by Lala Moin. The change is carried out without protest. The disguised teams are then flown to Dacca by way of Ceylon, alongside tens of thousands of West Wing troops also traveling in plain clothes.

For days, the new arrivals wait without being told the city’s name or their real purpose. Iskandar’s role in the deception is not merely to command the men after they arrive; the operation’s clothing and circuitous route make military deployment look like civilian travel. The apparent separation between soldier and airline passenger ends on March 25, after Yahya Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto break off talks with Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman and return to the West Wing.

That night Iskandar bursts into the CUTIA barracks with Najmuddin and Lala Moin, who is carrying the men’s uniforms and the dogs’ collars. The recruits are ordered to dress, take up arms, and fall into line. Iskandar at last explains that they have come to deal with Mujib and make him jump. His announcement converts the prolonged wait and civilian disguise into preparation for a military operation against political opponents.

The Crackdown and Narrative Role

At midnight, Shaheed Dar accompanies the troops into a Dacca already under attack. The university is being shelled; students and lecturers flee their hostels into gunfire, while women are dragged from their rooms and assaulted. Newspaper offices burn, trade-union offices are smashed, and roadside ditches fill with people shot in the streets. Ayooba Baloch leads the troops to Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman, who is arrested and taken to an aircraft bound for captivity in the West Wing.

Iskandar’s final recorded order in these scenes is a rallying cry that subversive elements still need to be rooted out. The line extends the operation beyond Mujib’s capture: arrests sweep up professors, poets, Awami League members, and others identified as undesirable. The narrator describes the men and dogs tracking people through the wreckage, while the soldiers’ physical reactions expose the violence that the command language tries to contain. Farooq Rashid, Shaheed, and Ayooba take turns vomiting at the stench of burning slums; the recruits nevertheless continue their work.

Iskandar is not given a private history or an interior account of his motives. He is defined through command gestures, training protocols, and the progression from hidden camp to armed deployment. That limited characterization makes him a conduit for the machinery of repression: the polished officer, the barked instruction, the plain-clothes disguise, and finally the demand for more targets. The recruits’ indoctrination supplies the operation’s euphemisms; the scene in Dacca supplies their consequence.