Professor Anwarul Karim, PhD :
Bangabandhu is dead. Long live Bangabandhu. Every year, August 15, appears as the darkest and blackest spot in the history of Bangladesh, nay the civilized world, following the treacherous and brutal killing of Bangabandhu and his family by a section of condemned army personnel who were not loyal to Bangladesh. No word can measure the depth of their crime, their betrayal to the new nation, nay to the whole humanity. No punishment was sufficient for them. It was the darkest chapter in the history of Bangladesh and it eclipsed our freedom Sun. Bangladesh weeps every time when August 15 knocks at the doors of Bangladeshi people, be they are insiders or they are outsiders, be they are Muslims or Hindus, Buddhists and Tribal’s or be they are Christian or belong to any other religions. For the last 47 years, the people of Bangladesh and also of those, who, this way or that, had shared their roots in Bangladesh, have been experiencing such kind of unbearable pangs of suffering and also are forced to bear the brunt of the scourge of Allah for the heinous crime which these sinners committed to the blessed and the noblest of creatures, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Man, who, the world recognized as the bravest of the men who sacrificed his life to the cause of his own men and country, he loved until he was brutally killed on 15 August 1975. He could not understand that such a crime could happen by his own men and his trust was so deep on his people that he lived almost unguarded in his home without fear. Bangabandhu passed sleepless nights in the Pakistan prison in West Pakistan when he was taken there. He, it was who, always cared for his people and made ceaseless efforts to give his people the three ‘S’ –security, succor and success. Pakistan looted out the wealth of the then East Pakistan and made her people dependant on them for food and other things. Urdu became the state language of East Pakistan and as a result, it denied jobs to the people of East Pakistan because of their ignorance of Urdu language. People then had no way out than to fight for their mother tongue and at the cost of their lives they forced the Pakistani criminals to admit ‘Bangla’ as one of the state languages. And finally, there came the victory under the leadership of Bangabandhu. The country East Pakistan regained Bangladesh and also recovered her lost glory. A brave new nation emerged as a single country that fought for their mother tongue, ‘Bangla’. No nation ever fought for their mother tongue in the history of the world. Bangla today has been recognized by the UNESCO and the 21st February has been accepted as the International Mother language Day, an honor which no other countries could ever have.
But alas! The person who leaped at the hot Sun of freedom for his people to keep was killed by a group of ‘scoundrels’ and ‘monsters’ to satisfy the conspirators he whole world was taken aback and deeply shocked when the news of the cruel killing of Bangabandhu, and the members of his family including his wife, and children reached them. His two daughters, Sheikh Hasina, presently the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and her sister Sheikh Rehana, were then away from the country and thus were saved. Allah saved them from the atrocity and brutal killing. The whole world looked dumb and motionless when the news came to them as a big blow. It was worse than a heinous bombshell and it caught everybody unaware and perplexed. Never such inhuman killing ever happened anywhere in the world. Political killings are not uncommon in the world history but such an inhuman killing of Bangabandhu and his family members is a crime the world never heard of or ever witnessed. Bangabandhu could never think or imagine that his own people would kill him. He trusted his men so much that it was not only beyond his or anybody’s imagination that such unholy and unwonted inhuman killing could take place on the soil of Bangladesh where millions of people, men and women bravely shed their blood for him and for the country, who they loved and cared most for the sake of country’s freedom against Pakistani Army junta.
Bangabandhu was fearless even when the killers, the green eyed demons and monsters in the shape of human being as of’ army’, entered his compound. He heard shots of gunfire but could not even guess that his son, Sheikh Kamal was gunned down in the ground floor. He came out of his room only to be shot at from a point blank range and fell down dead. Thus Bangabandhu, the ‘Poet of Politics’, an honor that adorned him internationally, so heroically breathed his last on the soil he was born and made it free from the Pakistani Junta getting killed by his own men, who were never loyal to him or to the nation! A ‘shame’ that the country still bears with a deep sense of a very sad, sensitive and pathetic heart.
The blood which was shed on the premises of Bangabandhu’s residence shall remain there till the world ends. All the ‘Perfume of Arabia’ cannot wipe out this sacred blood of Bangobandhu and the members of his family. The blood which still has been oozing out and would continue to do so till the world is doomed. It is most unfortunate that Bangladesh could not protect her greatest son of the soil, Bangabandhu, who risked death a number of times and plucked the Sun of freedom for his people met such an ending of his glorious birth!
(The writer, a regular contributor to The New Nation, is a noted educationist of Bangladesh )
