Bangladesh to observe Martyred Intellectuals Day Thursday

Bangladesh will pay homage on Thursday to the victims of the indiscriminate killing of the nation’s sharpest minds by the Pakistani Army and its collaborators on Dec 14, 1971 during the Liberation War.

President Md Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have issued separate messages to commemorate the Martyred Intellectuals Day.

They have called for tackling the anti-independence forces to build a secular Bangladesh with the spirit of the Liberation War.

Sensing defeat in the War, the Pakistani occupation army and its collaborators killed many university teachers, doctors, artists, writers, journalists and other prominent Bengalis just two days before their surrender, in a desperate act of vengeance.

They were systematically rounded up from their homes in the middle of the night, taken to torture cells throughout the city, brutalised for hours, and finally assembled on various killing fields and executed en masse.

The bodies of the slain intellectuals were found with marks of tortures in the capital’s Mirpur and Rayerbazar where the monuments have been built to immortalise them.

On Thursday, Bangladeshis will pay respect to the martyred intellectuals by placing flowers on the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial.

In his message on the eve of Martyred intellectuals Day, President Hamid called upon all to be imbued with the spirit of patriotism of the martyred intellectuals and work together to develop a merit-based nation.

Hasina in her message said in the history of the liberation struggle of the Bangalee nation, Martyred Intellectuals Day is a ‘painful occasion’.

She said the anti-liberation forces wanted to deprive the nation of its best intellectual wealth by killing them.

The prime minister said, "I pay deep respect to their memory and express profound sympathies to the bereaved members of their families."

The political parties, and social and cultural organisations have announced various programmes to observe the day.

The Awami League will hoist black flags at its offices across the country while the national and party flags will fly at half-mast.

The party will pay tribute to the martyred intellectuals by placing a wreath on the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial in Mirpur at 7am .

It will later place a wreath on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s mural in front of the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum.

The party will also place a wreath at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial in Rayerbazar.

After placing wreaths, the Communist Party of Bangladesh will organise a discussion of the leftist parties at the Moitree Auditorium of the Mukti Bhaban at Paltan at 5pm, the party said in a media release.