Working on building B’desh of Bangabandhu’s dreams: Sheikh Hasina

By Sumi Khan Dhaka, Jan 10 : Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday recalled killings, rape and genocide by the Pakistan Army and their auxiliaries in the 1971 Liberation War period and expressed gratitude to “friend in deed” India as she laid out the path ahead for the country in the “spirit of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman”.
“We will build the country as ‘Golden Bengal’ making it free from militancy and terrorism, as well as free from hunger and poverty and imbued with the spirit of non-communalism, this is our commitment on this great day, as ‘Son of the Soil’ Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman planned for long term and tried best to do within only three and half years,” she said in her address on “Homecoming Day”.
The day marks the safe return of Sheikh Mujib to his newly-independent country via London and New Delhi after 290 days of captivity in a Pakistani jail.
Sheikh Hasina noted that her father was subjected to inhuman torture in the Pakistan jail on 1971 where he had been counting moments for the execution of his death sentence that was pronounced in a farcical trial. He was released on January 8, 1972.
She also paid gratitude to India and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for her role in his return.
Noting Sheikh Mujib had loved the nation, Sheikh Hasina said: “Bangabandhu has been killed; his unfinished work and dream are with us.”