PM urges all to materialize Bangabandhu’s dream of building ‘Golden Bangladesh’

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called upon the countrymen to be united so that they could devote themselves in building ‘Golden Bangladesh’ as dreamt by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

“I call upon the country’s people- let us, inspired by the spirit of our great war of liberation, unite and devote ourselves to building the dream of the Father of the Nation, ‘Golden Bangladesh’,” she said in a message on the eve of the Genocide Day-2022.

“Even at the 51st anniversary of Genocide Day in Bangladesh, genocide, oppression, and other humanitarian disasters are still happening in some parts of the world. I believe that by following the principle of peace of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and avoiding all forms of discrimination, communalism, and colonialism, we can easily build a peaceful world order,” the premier added.

“Today is Genocide Day. On this day in 1971, the invading forces of Pakistan carried out the most barbaric massacre in Bangladesh,” she said.

She remembered with a heavy heart all the martyrs who sacrificed their lives on the night of March 25, 1971, whose fresh blood inspired the brave Bengalis to take an oath to take up arms and fight till the independence.

The greatest Bengali of all time, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, spent his whole life liberating the Bengali nation shackled for thousands of years, she said, adding that he was first arrested and imprisoned on 11 March 1948 while protesting to protect the dignity of the Bengali language.

Highlighting Bangabandhu’s struggling life, she added that since then, he led all the movements, including the language movement of ’52, the twenty one point of ’54, the anti-Ayub movement of ’62, the six points of ’66, the mass upsurge of ’69 with great foresight.

“After the mass uprising of 1969, on December 5, on the death anniversary of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, he declared, “From now on, the name of this eastern country of Pakistan will be Bangladesh only, instead of East Pakistan,” she continued.

He left the Minister’s portfolio and organized and strengthened the party, and prepared the whole nation for independence through struggle, she said.

The premier went on saying that the Awami League (AL), led by the Father of the Nation, won a single majority in the National Assembly in the ’70 elections.
However, the Pak-military junta started delaying the transfer of power, she added.

By procrastinating in the name of the meeting, they launched a secret conspiracy to kill the unarmed Bengalis, she said, adding that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib called for a non-cooperation movement from March 2; in his historic speech on March 7, he gave a clear outline of the goal of overcoming the long 23-year rule and exploitation and called for compliance with the 35-point directive from March 15.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib’s instructions were followed verbatim throughout East Bengal, she continued.

“Not only that, all the administrative, political, and economic activities of Bangladesh are being carried out in the manner he prescribed. Yahya’s rule became utterly obsolete,” she said.

Yahya-Bhutto repeatedly offered to compromise but the undisputed leader of Bangladesh gave up the lure of power and remained steadfast for the freedom-loving people of this country, she said.

“On 23rd March, Pakistan Day, the flag emblazoned with the map of Bangladesh was hoisted all over the country,” she added.

March 25 was the 24th day of the non-cooperation movement. Yahya secretly left Dhaka that evening. In the middle of the night, Pakistani troops started killing unarmed Bengalis indiscriminately in the name of ‘Operation Search Light’ with armored tanks,” the premier said.

She further said Dhaka University, Pilkhana, and Rajarbag were attacked, and students, teachers, Bengali police, and military personnel were killed.

“Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib was arrested in the early hours of March 26. Immediately before, the Father of the Nation wrote the final declaration of independence – “This may be my last message, from today Bangladesh is independent. —your fight must go until final victory is achieved.”- which was first broadcasted on EPR’s wireless and then spread across the country through leaders and activists of the Awami League and Chhatra League,” Hasina said.

She said the Pakistanis tortured Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib by imprisoning him in Mianwali prison in Pakistan.

“On 13 June, Anthony Mascarenhas, a Pakistani journalist, published a detailed article on the front page of The Sunday Times in the United Kingdom, entitled ‘GENOCIDE,’ based on a realistic picture of the Pakistanis’ brutality against Bengalis that accelerated the creation of world voice in favor of Bangladesh,” she said.

Three million people were martyred in 9 months long armed war, two hundred thousand mothers and sisters lost their dignity, and the whole country went under the rubble, she added.

Finally, with the victory on 16th December, independent sovereign Bangladesh was established, she continued.

President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Father of the Bengali Nation, was released from solitary confinement in Pakistan, returned to his beloved independent motherland on January 10, 1972, and devoted himself to rebuilding the war-torn country, she said.

With the help of the allies, as there was an empty treasury, he rehabilitated the displaced people, restored and developed the infrastructure, and put the production sector and the economy on a solid foundation, she added.

“In just three and a half years, he transformed the country into a least developed country. But our misfortune is that the defeated anti-independence clique of ’71 continues to conspire against him. On another darkest night on August 15, 1975, the incumbent President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was martyred along with his family members by brutal bullets. The murderous Mostaq-Zia and their successors illegally seized power and established a dictatorship in the country. The BNP tarnished the proud history of the Bengali nation by placing the perpetrators of the infernal massacre on 25th March, criminals against humanity and war criminals and murderers of the Father of the Nation in the National Parliament and hoisting the flag of independent Bangladesh in their cars,” she said.

“Awami League formed the government in 1996 after a long 21-year struggle. On October 5, 1998, we accessed the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In 1997, we proposed a resolution on the Culture of Peace at the UN General Assembly, which was adopted in 1999. Accordingly, United Nations declared 2000 as the “International Year for the Culture of Peace” and 2001-2010 as the “International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence,” she added.

“We have been working tirelessly for more than thirteen years since 2008 for the betterment of the people with their unwavering support in all elections. In the meantime, we tried the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war criminals by establishing the International Crimes Tribunal. We ensured the people’s right to vote through the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which also barred the illegal seizure of power,” she added.

“We have recognized March 25 as ‘Genocide Day.’ We have sheltered more than 1.1 million displaced Rohingya people who escaped with their lives from genocide in neighboring Myanmar. We are working on the principle of ‘Zero Tolerance’ to eradicate militancy and terrorism. We have already made Bangladesh a developing country,” she said.

“We have started implementing the Second Perspective Plan to achieve the ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ by 2030 and build a prosperous Bangladesh free from hunger and poverty by 2041. We are implementing ‘Bangladesh Delta Plan-2100’,” she continued.

The premier wished successes to all the programmes on the ‘Genocide Day’ occasion.