Bangladesh interim govt scraps holiday on founder Mujibur Rahman's death anniversary: Reports

As Bangladesh’s new ruler Muhammad Yunus goes about a nation re-building exercise, it appears the nation’s founder has failed to find a place in the new nation.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Father of the Nation in Bangladesh, will no longer be commemorated on his death anniversary, according to reports.

In a meeting of the Bangladeshi interim government presided by Yunus, it was decided to scrap the national holiday on August 15, the death anniversary of Mujib, according to Bangladeshi media.

On August 15, 1975, Mujib along with most of his family was killed in a coup in Bangladesh. His daughter Sheikh Hasina, who went to be the Bangladesh’s longest-ruling premier, survived the assassination as she was out of the nation at the time. Once civilian rule returned to the nation, the death anniversary of Mujib —popularly called as ‘Bangabandhu’ over his leadership of the Bangladesh’s War of Liberation against Pakistan— was observed as a public holiday. The public holiday was dubbed the National Day of Mourning.

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Following the scrapping of the national holiday, a statement from the Yunus’ office said the decision was taken after reaching a broad consensus after discussions with all political parties, according to The Dhaka Tribune.

Yunus, 84, is leading an unelected interim government of technocrats, Islamic clerics, and former military figures. It was installed by the Bangladeshi military and leaders of the protesters who, along with the pro-Pakistan Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami, overthrew Hasina last week.

Following the ouster, the remnants of the Hasina and her father in Bangladesh are under attack. Demonstrators climbed atop Mujib’s statue in Dhaka and hammered it. In another video from the capital, another demonstrator appeared to be urinating on Mujib’s statue. The house of Mujib in which he and his family members were massacred, which had long been a museum, was also torched by the mobs rampaging through Bangladesh.

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In her first message since her ouster merely hours before the announcement, Hasina on Tuesday urged the people of Bangladesh to mark Thursday (August 15) as the National Day of Mourning and offer garlands at Mujib’s now-torched house Bangabandhu Bhavan.