With heavy heart, we pay our rich tributes to the Martyred Intellectuals, who were picked up from their residences blindfolded and murdered brutally from December 10 to 14 in 1971, just two days ahead of the country’s victory 52 years ago.
Simultaneously, we all must take a fresh vow to resist the anti-liberation and communal forces, killers of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, intellectuals and all martyrs amid local and foreign conspiracies.
On this day in 1971, the country’s renowned academicians, physicians, engineers, journalists, artists, teachers and other eminent personalities were dragged out of their homes, blindfolded and taken to unknown places and then brutally tortured and murdered. Their bodies were later dumped at Rayerbazar, Mirpur and some other killing fields in the capital.
The killing of intellectuals is a barbaric and despicable event in the history of the world. The occupation Pakistan army’s local collaborators -- Al-Badr, Al-Shams and Razakars - butchered the most prominent intellectuals of the country in a bid to cripple the newly emerging nation of Bangladesh.
The Pakistani troops and their Bengali-speaking collaborators belonging to Razakar or other auxiliary forces also killed a number of intelligentsia throughout the nine-month long Liberation War. But especially during December 10 to 14 in 1971, the Pakistan occupation force visibly engaged the infamous Gestapo like Al-Badr and Al-Shams personnel on December 14, 1971 to carry out a clandestine systematic campaign to kill the best academics and professionals like doctors, engineers and journalists to turn the newborn nation to a state of brainlessness at the fag-end of the Liberation War in 1971.
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. It was the heinous, barbaric and brutal murders in the country’s history.
The killing of
intellectuals is a
barbaric and
despicable event
in the history of
the world
It was also a cold-blooded cruelty in order to resist the birth of Bangladesh a as the nation in the world. The Martyred Intellectuals Day is a black day in our history as we lost our valiant and illustrated sons.
Many intellectuals--including 991 teachers, 13 journalists, 49 physicians, 42 lawyers, and 16 writers, artists and engineers-- were picked up between December 12 and 14 in 1971 from different places, including capital Dhaka, and most of them did not return. Of them, Prof Muneir Chowdhury, Dr Alim Chowdhury, Prof Muniruzzaman, Dr Fazle Rabbi, Sirajuddin Hossain, Shahidullah Kaiser, Prof G C Dev, JC Guha Thakurta, Prof Santosh Bhattacharya, Mofazzal Haider Chowdhury, journalists Khandaker Abu Taleb, Nizamuddin Ahmed, SA Mannan [Ladu Bhai], ANM Golam Mustafa, Syed Nazmul Haq, Anwar Pasha and Selina Parvin were brutally tortured and killed by the anti-liberation force.
Just after two days, on December 16 in 1971, Bangladesh was born as an independent country under the leadership of Bangabandhu at the cost of supreme sacrifice of three million people and the honour of nearly half a million women.
However, most wanted war criminals, who managed to make their room in the national politics with the patronage of influential vested quarters emerged after the August 15, 1971 assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, were executed for war crimes.
The notorious war criminals Motiur Rahman Nizami Abdul Quader Mollah, Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury were executed for war crimes.
They masterminded the formation of the militia that killed unarmed civilians, raped women and destroyed properties during the nine-month bloody war. On the auspicious occasion, we all must take oath in glowing voice that we will not let the blood of the martyrs go in vain.