Bangladesh: Ink thrown on Bangabandhu’s image in Independence Memorial Mural

Dhaka: In yet another incident of vandalism targeting historical representations of Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, the image of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the Independence Memorial Mural ‘Arjon’ has been defaced with ink. 

The incident unfolded on Thursday night at the Modern Crossroads in Rangpur City of Bangladesh when a group of students associated with last year’s violent July uprising erased the image with spray cans and black paint, using a beam lifter of the Rangpur City Corporation, Bangladesh’s leading Bangla daily, Prothom Alo reported.

The Independence Memorial Mural ‘Arjan’ depicts the historical events of March 28, 1971, when the brave people of Rangpur surrounded the cantonment with batons, sticks, spears, maces and bows and arrows during the early days of the country’s Liberation War against Pakistan. The mural was formally inaugurated in 1999 and stood at a height of approximately 35 feet.

“The symbol of Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic government has been demolished from various places. I asked the Students’ Movement Against Discrimination and the NCP to remove Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s picture from the mural at Modern Mor, but they did not take the initiative. So we, the wounded July fighters, removed the picture,” Prothom Alo quoted one of the students, Rajibul Islam, who took part in the vandalism, as saying.

In April, a mob of radicals demolished the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial in Dhaka’s Mirpur area.

The monument was a symbol of the genocide committed by the Pakistan Army during the Liberation War of Bangladesh. (IANS)

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