Bangladesh paid homage to the intellectuals martyred in the 1971 liberation war as President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina led thousands in paying their respects in the capital.
Army bugles played the ‘Last Post’ as Hamid and Hasina stood in solemn silence in a state ceremony at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial here.
Pakistani troops and their Bengali-speaking Razakar collaborators and other auxiliary forces massacred several members of the pro-independence intelligentsia including physicians, professors, writers and teachers, throughout the nine-month war that is said to have killed over a million people.
Just two days ahead of the final victory over invading Pakistani forces on December 14, 1971, the infamous Gestapo-like Al-Badr and Al-Shams militias carried out a systematic campaign to murder well-regarded academics and professionals.
