There are but a few days in our history more painful and engaging of the collective psyche of a nation than 14 December. On this day, we remember and we grieve. We remember with a heavy heart the loss of…
Every year the nation observes the Martyred Intellectual Day with deep pain and heartfelt cry for justice. For many long decades it was a call in the wilderness, but the people, the members of the victims family and generation-next of…
PRELUDE Recalling the past is shunned…hey get going, don’t look back.. you are too emotional.. march forward…left right left… I am always in an uncertain state of mind when asked to write about the martyrs of 1971. Especially those who…
Exactly 10 years back, I wrote a piece for this same newspaper dedicated to write ups by the family members of the martyred intellectuals of the liberation war of Bangladesh. I ended it with an emotional call, which also became…
Even from a definitional standpoint, the killing of the intellectuals in the final moments of the war can certainly be termed as genocide. It is genocide because it could not have been invented overnight and must have been well thought-out…
As the war for independence neared its end, a final attempt to eliminate the members of then known as East Pakistan’s intelligentsia was executed by the Pakistani military junta. Mostly planned between 12 and 14 December over a 1000 academics,…
The Martyred intellectuals of 1971 had their differences from one another, but they had one thing in common and that was why they were killed. This was their patriotism. Patriotism is a virtue as well as a curse. It drives…
