Bangladesh remembers death of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Bangladesh remembers death of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
DHAKA (Reuter): While India and Pakistan celebrated yesterday
the end of the British Raj 50 years ago, a major witness to that
triumph, Bangladesh, silently mourned the death of independence
leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the hands of power-greedy army
officers.
Bangladesh was part of Moslem-dominated Pakistan created on
Aug. 14, 1947, a day before India was formally declared an
independent republic. But Pakistan's eastern flank seceded in
1971 through a nine-month war which claimed three million lives.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of Bangladesh Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina, led East Pakistan to independence but was
assassinated four years later.
Mujib, along with most of his family, was killed in the
nation's first army coup on Aug. 15, 1975, while he was serving
as prime minister.
The death of Mujib, a towering personality and firebrand
politician, paved the way for a succession of army generals to
grab power up until 1991, when a general's wife, Begum Khaleda
Zia, won office in the country's first free elections.
The election was held under a caretaker government, headed by
current President Shahabuddin Ahmed.
Khaleda's husband, former president Ziaur Rahman, was killed
in an abortive coup in 1981.
But Khaleda and Hasina, who led Mujib's Awami League to power
in June 1996, have remained bitter political rivals.
Both women greeted Pakistani and Indian leaders yesterday. But
neither Khaleda nor her opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP) had any words for Mujib.
After assuming power, Hasina declared Aug. 15 a national
mourning day, which is also a public holiday. The BNP matches the
occasion by celebrating Khaleda's birthday.
Hasina called yesterday the assassination of her father the
"most unfortunate event that wrote the blackest chapter" in the
country's 26-year history.
"It's an irony that when our two neighbors are all smiles at
the anniversary of the fall of British India, we in Bangladesh,
which also shared the glorious moment in 1947, now bleed in our
hearts over the unfortunate death of our independence leader,"
said Shahidul Islam, a Dhaka University student and an avowed
follower of Mujib.
Hasina, along with government and political leaders, placed
wreaths at the portrait of Mujib at his home in Dhaka's Dhanmandi
area. Then she offered prayers at the graves of her mother, three
brothers and other relatives.
The prime minister was due to fly to northern Tungipara
district, Mujib's ancestral home, to offer prayers at his grave.
The founder of Bangladesh, called Bangabandhu (friend of
Bengal) by his followers, was unceremoniously buried by his
killers at his family graveyard.
Young activists of the ruling Awami League, their faces
covered with black clothes, marched in the capital yesterday
demanding quick trial and execution of Mujib's killers.