MARTYRED INTELLECTUALS DAY: DECEMBER 14TH
(From the archive)

December 14 is the day of martyred intellectuals, who were brutally killed by the Pakistani occupation army and their cohorts in 1971. Sensing their imminent defeat in the Bangladesh's liberation war, the Pakistani occupation forces and their local collaborators Rajakar, Al-Badr and Al-Sham kidnapped leading Bengali intellectuals and professionals on December 14, 1971 and killed them only two days before victory at the end of a nine-month long War of Liberation.
Renowned academics, doctors, engineers, journalists, teachers and other eminent personalities were dragged blind-folded out of their residences in the city and killed in cold blood to cripple the new-born nation intellectually. Their bodies were dumped at Rayerbazar, Mirpur and some other places on the city's outskirts.

How savage their thoughts were! The plan of the occupation army and its supporters was to orphan the nation which would certainly need the leadership and wisdom of its worthy sons to move ahead in the early days of its independence.

Some may argue that the killings have set us back a bit. Think about the current crisis of true patriotic leaders and intellectuals with good moral character. But actually its our failure to carry on their legacy as we are forgetting them and our glorious past.

I think we can do more than our usual mundane observance of the day. I demand the government to ensure that this will never happen in the future.

The strongly believe that the nation can produce such great intellects over again. Let us remember those souls and try to do our work with a mission for which they died: "A peaceful, happy, prosperous and independent Bangladesh".