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BSS-25
DAY-MARTYRED-INTELLECTUALS LEAD
Nation set to pay homage to martyred intellectuals tomorrow
DHAKA, Dec 13, 2018 (BSS) – The nation is set to observe the Martyred
Intellectuals’ Day tomorrow in a befitting manner.
Just two days ahead of the country’s victory on this day 47 years ago, the
marauding Pakistan army in collusion with their local collaborators – Al-
Badr, Al-Shams and Razakars – killed the most prominent intellectuals of the
country in a bid to cripple the newly emerging nation of Bangladesh.
A memorial erected in memory of the martyred intellectuals at Mirpur in the
capital has been readied as national leaders and people from all walks of
life will pay tributes by placing wreaths there.
The Pakistani troops and their Bengali-speaking collaborators belonging to
Razakar or other auxiliary forces killed a number of intelligentsia
throughout the nine-month long Liberation War.
But, they visibly engaged the infamous Gestapo like Al-Badr and Al-Shams
forces on December 14, 1971 to carry out a systematic campaign to kill the
most eminent academics and professionals like doctors, engineers and
journalists to make the newborn nation to a state of brainlessness.
The then Bangladesh government and victorious freedom fighters, however,
came to know about their last brutal massacre only when the Pakistani troops
surrendered on December 16, 1971 and their top accomplices mostly belonging
to Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing went into hiding to resurface years
later.
Those who were exposed to the killers’ wrath on December 14, 1971 included
Dr Alim Chowdhury and Dr Fazle Rabbi, Journalists Shahidullah Kaisar,
Sirajudddin Hossain, Nizamuddin Ahmed, SA Mannan and Selina Parveen and
litterateur Monier Chowdhury.
Most of the December 14 victims were picked up from their houses
blindfolded and killed during December 10 to 14 in 1971.
Bangladesh, this year, observes the day with a sense of relief from the
stigma of impunity as the top assassins, who managed to make their room in
the national politics with the patronage of influential vested quarters
emerged after the August 15, 1975 assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman, were hanged.
MORE/KC-MMR/MRI/ARS/1753 hrs