BSS, Dhaka :The nation will observe the 47th anniversary of the martyrdom of Asad today in a befitting manner.The people of the country, on the day, will remember the sacrifice of the hero of the 1969 mass upsurge that swept away the regime of the strongman President Ayub Khan.Student leader Asad was shot dead near Chandkhar pool intersection adjacent to Dhaka University compound, by police at the height of the mass movement that hastened the fall of the dictator after more than a decade of his iron rule.Various socio-cultural and political organisations have chalked out programmes to observe the day.President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued messages marking the day.In separate messages, they paid tributes to the memory of Shaheed Asad.They prayed for salvation of his departed soul.In his message, President Abdul Hamid said the sacrifice of martyred Asad would not go in vain.After Asad’s killing, the movement turned into a mass upsurge and Bangladesh emerged as an independent country through the great War of Liberation at the call of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, he said.In her message, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Asad was killed in police firing on January 20, 1969, at the beginning of the mass upsurge.When people of Bangladesh, were perplexed due to discrimination and repression of the Pakistani rulers, the historic six-point demand of Bangabandhu emerged as a beacon of emancipation for the Bangalee Nation, she said.The then military ruler Ayub Khan implicated Bangabandhu in a ‘sedition’ case known as ‘Agartala Conspiracy Case’ being afraid of his popularity, added Sheikh Hasina.She said when the people of Bangladesh protested against the case, police killed Asaduzzaman, a master degree student of Dhaka University, at a protest rally in front of Dhaka Medical College Hospital on January 20, 1969.The supreme sacrifice of Asad triggered the mass upsurge that brought down the autocrat Ayub Khan, she added.
