New Delhi: 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 former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The angry mob vandalised the memorial and residence of Sheikh Hasina’s father located at Dhanmondi 32 in Bangladesh demanding a ban on the party he founded, Awami League, on Wednesday evening.
The attackers forcibly entered the premises after breaking open the gate and began a destructive rampage. The demonstrators were seen destroying the structure by climbing up. They also set ablaze the top floor of the building. 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 a change of the national anthem adopted by the Sheikh Mujib-led post-Independence government.
The house became an iconic symbol in Bangladesh’s history as Sheikh Mujibur Rahman 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 the 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.
This is the second time when the house of Rahman has been attacked by a mob in Bangladesh. Earlier the house was attacked after ex-PM Sheikh Hasina resigned from her post and fled the country. The protesters forcibly entered the premises of the house, which had long been associated with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s family, and declared that the house was a symbol of authoritarianism and fascism.
They expressed their intentions to erase any trace of the so-called ‘Mujibism’ and fascism in the country. Expressing regret over the incident during her online speech, Sheikh Hasina said that the agitators are destroying her childhood memory, but will never be able to erase her family’s history.
Almost in tears, Hasina said, “We sisters live for those memories of Dhanmondi, now they are destroying that house. Last time they did set this house on fire now they are breaking that house. They can break this house but they will not be successful in removing history.”
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.
