The nation will observe Genocide Day today recalling the horror of one of the worst genocides in modern history committed by the Pakistani occupation army against the unarmed people of Bangladesh on the night of March 25, 1971 and afterwards.
Like last year, a low profile will be kept in observing the day this year over the COVID-19 situation in the country while the government has decided to curtail the programmes of various national events.
The government has decided to observe one-minute symbolic lights-off vigil at night on March 25 throughout the country marking the Genocide Day.
The ministry of Liberation War Affairs has taken an initiative to observe the blackout from 9:00pm to 9:01pm, said a press release.
But, the key point installations and the essential establishments will remain out of the purview of the programme.
On the occasion, the government has also imposed restriction on lighting at the government, semi-government, autonomous and private buildings and structures on March 25 night. But lightings are allowed from the evening on March 26.
The decision has been taken by the government for implementing the national programmes commemorating the Genocide Day. All the countrymen and concerned public-private organisations have been requested to implement the programmes.
The Pakistan military launched its infamous ‘Operation Searchlight’ on March 25, 1971 killing several thousand freedom-loving Bengalis that night alone.
Three million people in the subsequent nine-month liberation war were savagely and systematically killed with help of local collaborators.
As part of the crackdown, tanks rolled out of Dhaka cantonment and a sleeping city woke up to the rattles of heavy weapon fires as Pakistani troops attacked Dhaka University halls, then East Pakistan Rifles (now Border Guard Bangladesh) headquarters, Rajarbagh Police Lines and the Old Town of Dhaka killing several thousand unarmed Bengalis.
People tried to resist the occupation army barricading streets felling trees and other things while members of East Pakistan Rifles and police put up a brave fight with outmoded 303 rifles against heavily armed Pakistani troops.
At midnight, the occupation troops raided the residential quarters of Dhaka University teachers and the halls and butchered many teachers and students.
Newspaper offices in Dhaka, notably Dainik Ittefaq, Sangbad and the People, were set ablaze for espousing the cause of the Bengalis.
In simultaneous attacks that night many people were killed and injured in the port city of Chattogram and at places across the country.
The crackdown set off the nine-month Liberation War led by the Mujibnagar government in exile which ended with the emergence of independent Bangladesh on December 16, 1971.
During the war, Pakistani occupation army and their local collaborators also violated more than two lakh women and about one crore people were forced to leave the country.
The government on March 21, 2017 declared March 25 as the Genocide Day following a parliamentary resolution adopted on March 11, 2017.
In his message, president Abdul Hamid emphasised collective efforts to turn the country into ‘Sonar Bangla’ as dreamt by the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as part of paying everlasting respect to the martyrs of the 1971 genocide.
‘Today is the dreadful 25th March, the Genocide Day. On this day in 1971, Pakistani invaders committed the most brutal killings in the history throughout the country including Dhaka,’ he said.
The then Pakistani aggressors, armed with sophisticated weapons, indiscriminately carried out genocide on the unarmed Bengalees on March 25, 1971 to silence the Bengali nation forever, Hamid said, adding that in the name of ‘Operation Searchlight’, they wanted to stop the resistance of the independence-seeking mass people.
Massacre took place simultaneously on Dhaka University campus, Rajarbagh Police Lines, Pilkhana (now BGB Headquarters), Jashore, Khulna, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Saidpur, Cumilla, Sylhet and Chattogram, he said.
In her message, prime minister Sheikh Hasina called on all to take a vow to uphold the freedom earned in exchange of 30 lakh martyrs and the respect of two lakh tortured mothers and sisters during the Liberation War in 1971.
Noting that the March 25 is ‘Genocide Day’ in the history of the Bengali liberation struggle, the premier said, on this day in 1971, the aggressor forces of Pakistan carried out the most barbaric massacre in Bangladesh.
Marking the day different political and socio-cultural organisations have taken various programmes.
Bangladesh Muktijoddha Mancha took a programme to lay siege to the Pakistan embassy in Dhaka demanding that Pakistan should beg forgiveness officially from Bangladesh on Independence Day.
Ruling Awami League’s Dhaka city north and south units will jointly organise a discussion at the party’s central office at 11:00am today.
Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s national committee for celebrating the golden jubilee of the country’s independence was scheduled to hold a discussion at the National Press Club, but it suspended all programmes till March 30 considering the COVID-19 situation.
The Ekattarer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee will hold an online programme marking the day at 3:00pm today.
The nation is observing the day as Genocide Day since 2017.
