AMN/ WEB DESK

Bangladesh is observing the National Mourning Day marking the 45th anniversary of the brutal assasination of its founder President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 15th August 1975.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina paid homage to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by placing wreaths at his portrait in front of the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi Road No. 32 in the capital.

In his message on this occasion President Abdul Hamid said that the day marked a ‘scandalous chapter’ in the history of Bangladesh.

In an interview to the state run Bangladesh Television (BTV), President Abdul Hamid said that he was offered the post of Minister by Zia Ur Rahman who had become head of state after Bangabandhu’s assasination in 1975. However, he declined the offer and publicly protested the assasination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for which he was arrested later.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with 16 members of his family was brutally assassinated on this day in 1975 by a group of people from the armed forces at his Dhanmondi residence in Dhaka. Among the close family members, only his daughter and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina and her sister survived as they were not in the country when the incident took place.