Staff Reporter :
‘Amar Bhaier Rokte Rangano Ekushey February, Ami Ki Bhulite Pari’, people from all walks of life sing in chorus one minute past midnight Thursday across the country while observing the Shaheed Dibas.
The day is also being observed simultaneously as the International Mother Language Day.
The people observe Amar Ekushey paying tributes to the martyrs of the language movement just at first minute of the February 21 by placing flowers at the Central Shaheed Minar.
Standing in solemn silence for a while they file past the altar by placing flowers in honour of the language movement heroes since beginning of the day.
Like other previous years, Dhaka University (DU) is supervising the Amar Ekushey observance programmes.
Students of the university’s fine art faculty decorated the Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka and the walls around the monument with various graffiti. Roads have been decorated with the national flag, festoons and cardboard cut-outs with Bangla letters.
President Abdul Hamid is expected to lead the nation to pay tribute to language heroes at the Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka, built in memory of the martyrs, a minute past midnight. The President will be followed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Speaker of the Jatiya Sangsad, the Chief Justice, Dhaka University teachers, language movement heroes and political parties.
Later, people from all walks of life will throng the area to pay floral tributes to the martyrs.
Different political parties, including the ruling Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, socio-cultural and professional organisations and educational institutions have taken elaborate programmes to mark the day.
On this day in 1952, students and people from all strata of society took to the streets in Dhaka to protest the then Pakistan government’s refusal to recognize Bangla as one of the state languages and imposition of Urdu as the only official language of Pakistan.
Salam, Barkat, Rafiq, Shafiur, Jabbar and some other brave sons of the soil sacrificed their lives on this day to establish Bangla as the state language.
The Language Movement is indeed the most important turning point in the history of Bangalee as its spirit led to the Independence of Bangladesh through a bloody nine-month war in 1971.
The events of the language movement led to other landmark movements, including the historic Six-Point Movement of 1966, Mass Uprising in 1969 and finally culminated into the War of Independence in 1971.
The Shaheed Dibas, which has also been observed simultaneously as the International Mother Language Day since 2000 following a UNESCO decision announced on November 17 in 1999.
