In another instance of Bangladesh interim government giving in to the demands of the students, chief advisor Muhammad Yunus ordered removal of the portrait of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from president’s office. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the founding father of Bangladesh and also, father of Sheikh Hasina who was forced to resign and leave country in view of the student uprising that often turned violent.
In the post-upheaval time, demonstrators stormed the former prime minister’s residence, seizing anything they could get their hands on. As Sheikh Hasina fled, their fury turned toward her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose legacy so far endured through street names, public landmarks, and impassioned speeches.
Some protesters climbed up his statue at Bijoy Sarani in the heart of Dhaka and pulled it down. Public murals depicting Bangabandhu or ‘Friend of Bengal’ – a sobriquet that characterised the legacy of Bangladesh’s first president – were defaced. The we-brought-you-freedom story has an expiry date
His house in Dhanmondi where he and most of his family members were assassinated on August 15, 1975 and which was later turned into a memorial, was badly damaged by protesters. The mosaic panel in the Dhaka University area was defaced. Many fear that his legacy will be slowly erased.
Sheikh Hasina, 76, resigned as prime minister on August 5 amid widespread protests against her government. The students protested against the government jobs’ quota system that favoured the families of the veterans of 1971 war. With no solution in sight, the protests became violent. Rahman was born in 1920 in undivided India. Bangladesh evolved from Bengal presidency to East Bengal to East Pakistan and eventually as a separate nation born in 1971.
On his death anniversary, 10 days after Sheikh Hasina fled, a large group of stick-wielding people positioned themselves in front of the Bangabandhu’s residence-turned-museum and foiled attempts by deposed premier Sheikh Hasina’s supporters to commemorate the anniversary of the assassination of her father and Bangladesh’s founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
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