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Download PDF In compliance with a recent High Court (HC) ruling, the government yesterday reinstated August 15 as National Mourning Day and a public holiday to commemorate the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The decision came at a weekly meeting of the council of advisers, said Chief Adviser’s Press Secretary Syed Fahim Munaim.
The last BNP-led alliance government had cancelled the state observance of August 15 in 2002. The HC on July 27 declared the decision illegal. It also cancelled the order that had prohibited flying of the national flag at half-mast on the day.
August 15 was first declared National Mourning Day by the then Awami League (AL) government in 1996.
On this day in 1975, the nation saw the architect of its independence Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman killed along with most of his family by a group of army officers.
The HC in its July 27 ruling noted that the grounds the alliance government cited for cancelling observance of the day at state level were not factually correct.
In scrapping the status of August 15 as National Mourning Day and public holiday, the BNP-Jamaat government argued that previously the day had neither been fixed nor been observed as such.
On the day, national flags will be at half-mast all over the country and at Bangladesh missions abroad.
REACTION
AL welcomed the government’s decision. “We welcome it whole heartedly,” said AL acting general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam.
“We congratulate the caretaker government and its all advisers for declaring 15 August as National Mourning Day and a public holiday in line with the High Court verdict.”
Talking to The Daily Star last night, he observed that it shows there is a rule of law in the country. “And finally, justice prevails over injustice,” added the AL spokesman.
Hailing the government decision, Jatiya Party (Monju) Secretary General Sheikh Shahidul Islam said, “This will give the countrymen opportunity to pay respect to the best son of the soil as well as the father of the nation.”
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