Historic Mass Upsurge Day on Tuesday

The historic 'Mass Upsurge Day', commemorating the 1969's movement for autonomy from the then East Pakistan that eventually led to the Liberation War and the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971, will be observed on Tuesday in a befitting manner.

On 24 January, 1969 Matiur Rahman Mallik, a standard IX student of the Nabakumar Institution, and Rustam Ali, a rickshaw-puller, were killed in a police firing on demonstrators in Dhaka as Pakistani rulers desperately tried to suppress the popular uprising.

The killings spread intense protests across the country that eventually saw the fall of the autocrat Ayub regime.

It is said that the day teaches Bangladeshis the values of democracy and protest against oppression.

Different political and socio-cultural organisations have taken separate programmes in observance of the day. Bangladesh Awami League will place wreaths at Shaheed Matiur Rahman Smiriti Saudha at Nabakumar Institute in Bakshibazar at 10am on Tuesday.

On the eve of the day, President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh

Hasina yesterday issued separate messages, expressing profound respect for those who had embraced martyrdom in the historic movement in 1969.

"The 24 January of 1969 is a historic day in the progress of independence and democracy of Bangladesh," the President said in his message.

Paying profound homage to the memory of those who were martyred in the independence freedom, he said the day has been remembered in the history of the country's struggle of independence and freedom movement as the day of mass uprising.

Abdul Hamid said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared the historic Six-Point Demand in 1966 to make the Bangalee nation free from Pakistani rule, exploitation and deprivation.

The six-point was the charter of Bengalees' freedom, he added.

He said after the six-point declaration, the speed of the freedom movement intensified and it spread all over the East Bengal.

"The joint movement of Awami League as well as various political parties and student organisations accelerated the mass movement," the President said, adding that the then dictator filed the Agartala conspiracy case to foil the movement.

Abdul Hamid urged all to work together for building a prosperous Bangladesh being imbued with the spirit of the 1969 mass uprising.

In her message, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called upon all, irrespective of party affiliations, to work together for building a modern, developed and prosperous nation dreamt by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

She said the 1969 mass upsurge is a significant chapter in the history of the country's independence.

The nation achieved independence following the 1952 Language Movement, Six-Point Demand, 11-Point Demand, the Mass Upsurge of 1969 and the armed War of Liberation, the premier said. "We got an independent-sovereign Bangladesh," she added.