National Mourning Day

at the party’s central office amid much fanfare and festivities in presence of her party leaders and workers to celebrate her so-called birth day. After assuming power in 1991 Khaleda Zia had begun celebrating her birthday on August 15. She drew flak from different platforms for observing birthday on the day which is the death anniversary of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Her decision to observe birthday on this particular day was undeniably a gesture to show disrespect to the saddest event in Bangladesh’s history and undermine significance of the day.

Khaleda Zia’s educational certificates show September 5 as her birth day but after assuming power in 1991 she deliberately chose to observe her birth day on August 15 with specific intention to undermine solemnity of the death anniversary of Bangabandhu which is observed as National Mourning Day.

Founding father of Bangladesh Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and all but two members of his family were assassinated in a gruesome and barbaric manner on August 15, 1975 by a group of Army officers known as ‘Killer Majors’ in association with pro-Pak forces. His trusted associate Khandaker Moshtaque Ahmed immediately took control of the government. Khandaker proclaimed himself President. Sheikh Mujib’s two daughters Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana who were in London at the time were barred from returning to the country.

The killers were allowed free passage to Bangkok by a special charter plane. From Bangkok they reached Libya. The getaway was arranged by Khandaker after the killing of four national leaders inside Dhaka Central Jail on November 3, 1975 in which the ‘Killer Majors’ took part.
Khandaker proclaimed Indemnity Ordinance that blocked investigations in to the cold blooded murder of Sheikh Mujib and the four national leaders.
After the political changeover in 1975, Bangladesh’s first military ruler General Ziaur Rahman took the Indemnity ordinance in to the statute book and rewarded the ‘Killer Majors’ with diplomatic jobs at Bangladeshi missions abroad.

What followed was a bizarre sequence of events one would associate with mafia rule.

It was twenty one years after the heinous crime was committed that Sheikh Hasina, after coming to power in 1996, annulled the Indemnity Law to pave the way for prosecution of Mujib killers. She had to overcome many adversities that stood on the way. Five of the 12 convicted Mujib killers were ultimately brought to justice and they were executed in 2010. One died before the trial. Remaining six are on the run and efforts are being made to bring them to justice.

August 15 was officially declared as National Mourning Day by Sheikh Hasina-led government in 1996. But the BNP-Jamaat government led by Khaleda Zia, after coming to power in 2001, scrapped the day’s official status. It was left to the army-backed Caretaker government to intervene and set the matter right by approaching the High Court which, in turn, declared the BNP-led government’s decision illegal and ill-motivated.

The High Court decision was indeed evocative of the sentiments of the nation. The people of Bangladesh have for years been of the opinion that the tragic happenings of August 15 are a blot on human conscience. They have all along been in favour of observing the day in remembrance of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib. The nation has always looked at the assassination as the darkest period in the history of Bangladesh.

The High Court decision striking down Khaleda Zia’s ill-motivated decision to cancel August 15 as national mourning day has been welcomed by the people all over the world because of quite a few reasons. In the first place it will remind the nation as well as the world outside of the collective shame that the people went through when Sheikh Mujib was murdered along with his family. In the second, it is a clear sign that for all the darkness that the country has traversed in years since the assassination, the people need to reassert the values that have consistently underscored Bengali culture and heritage. Finally it is a pointer to the presence in Bangladesh of elements averse to accord high esteem that is Sheikh Mujib’s. These elements happen to be the remnants of a class, which for years have thrived in Bangladesh through distortion of history.

By observing birth day with rejoice and merry-making on national mourning day Khaleda Zia has not only trivialized the significance of the day which the people will never accept, she has also proved that her alliance with the killers of Bangabandhu and the enemies of the country’s independence was inseparable. She does not seem to realize that she has humiliated herself by mocking her birth day celebrations on the national mourning day.