Dhaka, Aug 14 (IANS) — Bangladesh’s Awami League on Thursday strongly criticised the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government for its decision not to commemorate the 50th death anniversary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15 and for warning citizens against holding related events.
The party, which had announced plans to observe August 15 as National Mourning Day, marking the assassination of Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members in 1975, accused the “fascist” regime of curbing citizens’ rights and stifling freedom of speech.
In a statement, the Awami League called August 15 “a day of profound grief, marking one of the most heinous assassinations in human history.” It described Mujibur Rahman as “the architect of independent Bangladesh, the leader of its liberation movement, and the Greatest Bengali of all time,” murdered alongside most of his family by “reactionary killers, enemies of humanity.”
The party referred to August as an “ill-fated month” in Bangladesh’s history, citing the grenade attack of August 21, 2004, and the nationwide serial bomb blasts of August 17, 2005. It alleged that in August 2024, “anti-liberation, anti-national forces, fuelled by Pakistani ideology, illegally seized power through deep domestic and foreign conspiracies.”
Accusing the Yunus-led administration of derailing a prospering Bangladesh and closing “all doors of opportunity,” the Awami League vowed to “turn grief into strength” and “liberate the country from its current state of captivity.”
The party recalled how the killers of 1975 enacted the Indemnity Ordinance to block the assassination trial, and credited former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina with restoring the rule of law, securing justice for Mujibur Rahman’s murder, and initiating war crimes trials through the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT). It alleged that the Yunus regime had “illegally restructured the ICT to stage a mock trial” against Hasina and other leaders in revenge.
The statement accused the government of “violating the Constitution, usurping power, and imposing a reign of fear,” while banning National Mourning Day observances and threatening arrests for non-compliance.
Calling for unity against “anti-people forces,” the Awami League urged its allies, affiliated organisations, and socio-political groups at home and abroad to honour National Mourning Day on Friday “with dignity, respect, and love, in a solemn and grief-stricken atmosphere.”
