Martyred Intellectuals Day being observed
The nation is recalling the countless intellectuals who embraced martyrdom at the hands of Pakistani occupation army and their local collaborators’ killing squads on this day in 1971 with due solemnity.
Barbaric Pakistani army and their collaborators sensing their imminent defeat systematically killed prominent Bangladeshi intellectuals and professionals at the fag end of the liberation war on December 14, 1971 aiming to cripple the emerging new nation.
The national flag was hoisted at half-mast along with black flags on Thursday.
President Abdul Hamid paid tribute to the martyred intellectuals placing a wreath at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial at Mirpur in the capital this morning after his return from Turkey, reports United News of Bangladesh.
Awami League leaders and activists placed wreaths at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial and Rayerbazar Killing Ground in the morning.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by its chairperson Khaleda Zia paid homage to the martyred intellectuals at the memorial at Mirpur in the morning.
Activists of different political and social organisations and people from all walks of life and ages are placing floral wreaths at memorials at Mirpur and Rayerbazar as well as elsewhere in the country.
To mark the day, different socio-cultural and political organisations have chalked out elaborate programmes, including seminars, discussions and placing wreaths at the memorials at Mirpur and Rayerbazar.
Dhaka University has also prepared programmes to pay respect to the martyred intellectuals, many of whom belonged to the university.
Meanwhile, president Abdul Hamid, prime minister Sheikh Hasina, BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia recalled the contributions of martyred intellectuals in separate messages issued on the eve of the day.
Pakistani army and their local collaborators Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams, only two days before their surrender, abducted members of the Bengali intelligentsia blindfolded, with their hands tied, from their houses to army camps or other places. They never returned.
They took all — writers, scientists, artistes, singers, teachers from universities to primary schools, researchers, journalists, lawyers, physicians, engineers, architects, sculptors, people involved in film making and theatre and cultural activists — and decomposed bodies of many of them were found from ditches and other water bodies as well as places in Dhaka and its suburbs.
Discovery of blindfolded and mutilated bodies of many of the martyred intellectuals from the killing fields of the occupation army across the country shocked the nation as well as the world.
Immediately after independence, December 14 was declared as the Martyred Intellectuals Day by Tajuddin Ahmad, the country’s first prime minister.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net
