Bangladesh mourning founding father Bangabandhu on 1975 massacre anniversary

Bangladesh is paying homage and reliving painful memories of the assassination of its founding father and most members of his family on the National Mourning Day.

Within four years of independence, Bangladesh witnessed the darkest day of its history on Aug 15, 1975 when a group of junior army officers massacred the very hero of independence Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family at his home in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi 32.

The assassins did not spare even 10-year-old boy or pregnant woman in one of the bloodiest political assassinations the world has ever seen.

The day - a public holiday – will begin with lowering of the national flag at half-mast at all government, semi-government and autonomous organisations, educational institutions, private establishments and Bangladesh missions abroad.

In the first hours of Thursday, Bangabandhu’s Dhanmondi home, now the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, reverberated with slogans as people started coming to show respect by placing candles in front of his mural.

President Md Abdul Hamid and Bangabandhu’s daughter Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have issued separate messages for the day.

Hamid has urged the people to devote themselves to build a Bangladesh free from poverty as dreamt by Bangabandhu.

Hasina also made the same call and said: “This should be our solemn pledge on this National Mourning Day.”

“The killers were able to assassinate Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman but they could not kill his dreams and ideals,” she added.

Hamid and Hasina will pay respect to Bangabandhu by placing wreaths on his image at the museum on Thursday morning.

Special prayers will also be held seeking peace for the souls departed through the carnage.

After the president and the prime minister, the leaders and activists of the Awami League and other political parties, and different organisations will pay respect to Bangabandhu.  

Catastrophe befell the fledgling nation on that night in 1975 as neither the president’s 10-year-old son Sheikh Russell, nor nephew Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni’s pregnant wife Arzoo Moni, could escape the massacre.

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Besides Moni, the others included Bangabandhu’s wife Bangamata Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib, brother Sheikh Naser, brother-in-law Abdur Rab Serniabat, sons Sheikh Kamal, Sheikh Jamal, daughters-in-law Sultana Kamal and Rosy Jamal.

The president’s Military Secretary Bir Uttam Colonel Jamil Uddin Ahmed, who rushed to the Bangabandhu Bhaban at Dhanmondi 32 on receiving SOS from him early in the morning, was also slain.

Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana escaped the carnage as they were abroad. 

Bangabandhu was buried in his home town Gopalganj’s Tungipara and the others at Banani graveyard.

Special prayers will be held in mosques, temples, churches and pagodas.

The Awami League will distribute food among the poor.

Bangladesh Television, Bangladesh Betar and other private television stations will broadcast special programmes on the day. The national dailies will publish special supplements.

Born on Mar 17, 1920 at Tungipara, Sheikh Mujib came to limelight with the formation of Purba Pakistan Chhatra League following the end of British rule in the Indian sub-continent.

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Mujib continued to rise in national politics because of his active involvement in the Language Movement in 1952, 1954 general elections, and six-point declaration in1966.

His arrest in the Agaratala conspiracy case catapulted him into national limelight, making him the undisputed leader of the Bengalis' freedom struggle against Pakistani exploitation.

He was given 'Bangabandhu' title after he was freed from jail in 1969.
On Mar 7, 1971 he delivered the historical speech at Race Course Maidan (Now Suhrawardy Udyan), which inspired the Bengalis to wage an armed struggle to win independence from Pakistan.

Five of the 12 condemned-to-death killers have so far been hanged in 34 years of wait for justice. It took 21 years to start the case - only when after the Awami League returned to power in 1996.

The day was not observed nationally either in these years. The High Court in 2008 declared it National Mourning Day.
The trial could not be held earlier because the killers were indemnified by Bangladesh’s first military ruler Gen Ziaur Rahman who went on to found the BNP.

Six of the convicted killers are reportedly hiding abroad, with no visible breakthrough in government efforts to bring them back.

Hasina in her message said Zia rewarded the Bangabandhu killers with diplomatic assignments abroad.

The subsequent governments of BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami alliance had followed the same path, she said.