Aug 15 carnage blow to whole nation: PM

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the killing of Bangabandhu was not only an attack on a family, the massacre was a blow to the whole nation. Anti-liberation forces brutally killed Bangabandhu along with most of his family members, nephew and security personnel to take revenge for their defeat in the 1971 Liberation War, she said. Sheikh Hasina, eldest daughter of Bangabandhu, said this while inaugurating a blood donation programme organised by Bangladesh Krishak League on the premises of Bangabandhu Bhaban on Dhanmondi Road no 32 on Saturday. The carnage of August 15, 1975 was retaliation against the Bengali nation for its victory defeating Pakistani army in a war, she said. The killers wanted the Bengali nation not to raise its head again. To execute their evil design, they brutally killed the four national leaders in the jail on November 3, 1975, who led the War of Liberation on the ground. The PM recalled that only 15 days ago she and her only surviving sister Sheikh Rahana left for Germany with her two children, Joy and Putul. "We could never thought that such a disaster was waiting for us," she said. "We departed the country leaving everybody. And after 15 days we lost all of them at a time, how pathetic it was," Hasina, also the president of Awami League, remembered in a voice choked with emotion. She said the killers usurped power and prevented her from coming back home. But she decided to break the barriers of the rulers when Awami League made her the party chief, she said. She said the band of killers launched attacks on three houses at a time and resorted to cold-blooded murder of the family members of Bangabandhu irrespective of women and children. The killers even didn't spare Krishak League leader and brother of Bangabandhu Sheikh Naser and 16 members of his house including his two daughters, minor son and grandchild. Krishak League arranged the blood donation as part of the AL’s 40-day programme marking the 40th National Mourning Day commemorating the assassination of Bangabandhu 40 years ago, according to BSS.

- mbz