A large group of protesters on Wednesday vandalised and set on fire Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s residence in Dhaka during a live online address of his daughter and deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Witnesses said several thousand people rallied in front of the house at the capital’s Dhanmondi area, which was earlier turned into a memorial museum, since early evening following a social media call for “Bulldozer Procession” as Hasina was supposed to make her address at 9 pm (BST).
Hasina delivered her address organised by the Awami League’s now-disbanded student wing Chhatra League and called upon the countrymen to organise a resistance against the current regime.
“They are yet to have the strength to destroy the national flag, the constitution and the independence that we earned at the cost of lives of millions of martyrs with a bulldozer,” Hasina said in an apparent reference to Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus’s incumbent regime, installed by the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement.
She added: “They can demolish a building, but not the history … but they must also remember that the history takes its revenge.” The student movement earlier promised to scrap Bangladesh’s 1972 Constitution as they promised to bury the “Mujibist constitution” while some far-right groups also suggested change of the national anthem adopted by Sheikh Mujib-led post-independence government.
The house became an iconic symbol in Bangladesh history as Sheikh Mujib largely led the pre-independence autonomy movement for decades from the house while during the successive Awami League rule when it was turned into a museum, foreign heads of state or dignitaries used to visit in line with state protocol.
The 32 Dhanmondi residence was set on fire earlier on August 5 last year when Hasina’s nearly 16-year Awami League regime was toppled and she secretly left the country along with her younger sister Sheikh Rehana for India on a Bangladesh Air Force flight.
Hasina said she and her only surviving sibling had donated their ancestral house to a trust as a public property, turning the building into Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, as Sheikh Mujib was fondly called “Bangabandhu” or “Friend of Bengal” since the late 1960s when his movement for autonomy from Pakistan turned into a mass upheaval in 1969.
He was killed along with most of his family members in a coup staged by a group of junior or mid-ranking military officers on August 15, 1975 when Hasina and Rehana were in Germany.
The deposed premier in a slight emotion-choked voice said that the Pakistani troops also looted the house during the 1971 Liberation War but did not demolish or set it on fire.
“Today, this house is being demolished. What crime it had committed? Why they were so afraid of the house… I seek justice from the people of the country. Didn’t I do anything for you?” she said.
Witnesses said a group of army troops emerged at the scene to persuade the protestors but they were greeted with boos.
The protesters first damaged a mural of the assassinated leader on the building’s boundary wall and wrote “There won’t be 32 anymore”.
A key-organiser of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, Abdul Hannan Masud, meanwhile, called for the demolition of all residences belonging to former Awami League MPs and ministers in a Facebook post proposing new buildings be constructed on those sites. Earlier in the day, convenor of the platform Hasnat Abdullah warned Bangladesh media outlets against broadcasting Hasina’s speech, saying it would be seen as facilitating her agenda.
In her speech, Hasina, however, said the ordinary students were used by Yunus for an orchestrated movement to grab the state power and urged them to go back to their studies to build their future to serve the country.
Meanwhile, Home Adviser Lt Gen (retd.) Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury said on Wednesday that the interim government is making all efforts to bring back Hasina and others from India under the extradition treaty.
Hasina, 77, has been living in India since August 5 last year when she fled Bangladesh following a massive student-led protest that toppled her Awami League’s 16-year regime.
Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) has issued arrest warrants for Hasina and several former Cabinet ministers, advisers, and military and civil officials for “crimes against humanity and genocide”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)