‘We must hold our heads high as a victorious nation’, Hasina tells Victory Day event

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has asked all Bangladeshis to hold their heads high and vow not to bow down to anyone as the nation is celebrating 46 years of victory over Pakistan in the Liberation War.

“We must keep in mind that we are a victorious nation,” she said in an address to the audience of a Victory Day cultural programme at the Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka through a video call on Saturday.

“We never bow down to anyone. We mustn’t forget for a single moment that we are a victorious nation. We must hold our heads high in the world.

“This is the pledge we must make today,” Hasina said. 

She urged the youths to build themselves with the secular and democratic spirit of the struggle for independence to establish a society free from inequality.

The prime minister also said she hoped the people of Bangladesh would celebrate the victory forever.

She paid respect to those who helped the guerilla fighters during the 1971 war.

“And my hate goes to those who collaborated with the Pakistani forces and handed our mothers, sisters, to them for torture, who conducted genocide, looted our assets, torched our homes,” Hasina said. 

“But the people of Bangladesh finally defeated them,” she said.

Hasina, the eldest daughter of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, also recalled how the family celebrated the day of victory in 1971 in captivity.

The Pakistani forces released Hasina, her sister Sheikh Rehana, brother Sheikh Russell and their mother Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib a day after surrendering.

“There were Joy Bangla slogans all around the city. Russell, Rehana, our mother and I raised the slogan in our house in presence of the Pakistani occupation,” she said.

After addressing the programme, Hasina spoke to freedom fighters and their families through the video call.