Dhaka, Mar 26 (PTI) Bangladesh on Thursday celebrated the 56th anniversary of its independence from Pakistan, with 31 military gun salutes heralding the day, homage to those killed in the 1971 Liberation War, an armed forces parade and a presidential civic reception featuring the commemoration.
President Mohammad Shahabuddin and Prime Minister Tarique Rahman jointly paid tributes at the National Memorial on the outskirts of Dhaka.
The armed forces staged their traditional Independence Day parade when the President took the salute and inspected the parade, while the Prime Minister witnessed the event at the National Parade Ground in the capital.
A flag-bearing skydive, armoury acquisitions of different regiments and contingents of the armed forces, spectacular fly-past and aerobatic display featured the event alongside the march past presented by military, navy, air force, paramilitary forces and police.
In the afternoon, Shahabuddin hosted a civic reception at Bangabhaban presidential palace, which was joined by Liberation War veterans and foreign diplomats alongside the Chief Justice, ministers, senior politicians, including those of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), senior officials and distinguished citizens.
Bangladesh this year celebrated the day in a changed political scenario when the far-right Jamaat-e-Islami, which was opposed to Bangladesh’s 1971 independence, emerged as the main opposition in parliament.
For the first time, Jamaat leaders, including party chief Shafiqur Rahman, visited the National Memorial and offered prayers for those killed in the 1971 war and freedom fighters.
Deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, which had led the nine-month-long Liberation War, remained beyond the scene as it was disbanded by Muhammad Yunus’ past interim government.
On the night of March 25, 1971, the Pakistan Army launched a sudden crackdown called “Operation Searchlight” as part of a planned offensive designed to crush Bengali demands for democracy and regional autonomy and the transfer of power after the electoral victory of the Awami League under Bangladesh’s founding father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in Pakistan’s 1970 general election.
Instead of honouring the democratic mandate of East Pakistan’s Bengali majority, the ruling establishment in West Pakistan responded with tanks, artillery and machine guns, prompting the Bengalis to forge resistance and launch the Liberation War with crucial Indian support.
The Bangladesh government was formed on April 17, 1971, in the western Bangladesh frontier of Meherpur. PTI AR AMS
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