Bangabandhu's Homecoming Day observed

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Homecoming Day was observed yesterday with Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina and front and socio-cultural organisations' leaders placing wreaths at his portrait in front of Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in the capital's Dhanmondi 32.

Bangabandhu became the undisputed leader of the then Pakistan through AL's landslide victory in the general elections of 1970s and was arrested by the Pakistani army on March 25, 1971 from his Dhanmondi residence during a late night crackdown on East Pakistanis.

He was kept in a West Pakistani jail while the nation fought the Liberation War for nine months to achieve victory on December 16, 1971. On the day in 1972, the Pakistani junta was compelled to free Bangabandhu.

The AL will organise a rally at Suhrawardy Udyan today where Hasina, Bangabandhu's daughter and the current prime minister, is scheduled to give a speech.

Bangladesh's founder Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. File photo

AL General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, at the memorial, said the defeated forces of the Liberation War were hatching a conspiracy to destroy the country's hard-earned democracy in many ways.

"Razakars and anti-liberation forces had initiated a conspiracy since 1971 and they are still active both at home and abroad, intending to tarnish the country's image...They were not at all successful in the last 44 years and they will not be in the future," he said.

At an another programme on Bangabandhu Avenue, AL Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif said the split of BNP was inevitable as people have no confidence in the party.