The then Bangladesh government and victorious freedom fighters, however, came to know about the brutal massacre only after the December 16, 1971 surrender by Pakistani troops when their top accomplices of the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing went into hiding and resurfaced years later.
The nation observed the day this year even as most of the top perpetrators have been hanged in the past three years on charges of crimes against humanity during the war.
A memorial erected in memory of the martyred intellectuals at Mirpur area in the capital was readied as President Hamid and Prime Minister Hasina offered tributes by placing wreaths there.
A report of the then American Press Corps narrated the gruesome killings of Bengali intellectuals that had taken place at the fag end of the war.
