President, PM pay tribute to martyred intellectuals

GBNEWS24DESK//

President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today paid rich tributes to the martyred intellectuals on the occasion of the Martyred Intellectuals Day.

After the president, the PM placed wreaths at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial at Rayerbazar in Dhaka.

They stood there in solemn silence for a while as a mark of profound respect to the memories of the illustrious sons of the soil.

A contingent of the Bangladesh Armed Forces gave a state salute.

Flanked by central leaders of the Awami League, Hasina, the president of the AL, laid another wreath at the memorial as the party chief.

Later, the prime minister talked to the war-wounded freedom fighters and the family members of the martyred intellectuals.

Hasina then went to Dhanmondi in Dhaka and placed a wreath at the portrait of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in front of Bangabandhu Memorial Museum.

After placing the wreath, she stood there for some time as a mark of profound respect to the memory of Bangabandhu, the architect of Bangladesh’s independence .

On the night of December 14, 1971, more than 200 intellectuals, including educationists, journalists, litterateurs, writers, physicians, scientists, lawyers, artists, philosophers and political thinkers, had been picked up in Dhaka by the Pakistani occupation forces, aided by their local collaborators.

The intellectuals were taken to torture cells in Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Nakhalpara, Rajarbagh and other locations in different parts of the city and later executed en masse at different killing grounds, most notably Rayerbazar and Mirpur.