The Bangladesh National Awami Party (NAP) has said that despite the plot of the Liberation War emerging through the Language Movement, the country is yet to get a complete list of the veterans and martyrs of the 1952 protests, and this is unfortunate.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the party blamed the governments of the last 53 years for the "failure.”
Signed by NAP President Jebel Rahman Ghaani and Secretary General M Golam Mostafa Bhuiyan, the statement said nobody is taking responsibility for that. They also termed the lack of a complete list “the state’s failure.”
Even though several people were killed in firing by government forces on February 21 and 22 in 2952, not all of them were recognised or honoured for sacrificing their lives, the statement adds.
“If the government does not reveal the information preserved, the actual number of language martyrs will always remain unclear to the generations to come,” it says.
“Everybody should remember that our sense of nationalism and demand for liberation grew from the Language Movement. It is our ultimate duty and responsibility that the language heroes are honoured to the fullest,” the NAP statement concludes.
More than five killed
It is a common notion that only five people—Salam, Rafique, Shafique, Jabbar, and Barkat—were killed on February 21, 1952, in a police firing in front of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) as they took to the street to intensify the campaign to establish Bangla as the state language of then Pakistan, sowing the seeds of subsequent movements for the country's independence.
It came as students were demonstrating under the All-Party Students Action Committee against the conspiracies of Pakistani rulers to declare "Urdu" as the only state language.
From a list of eight deceased people that veteran journalist and author MR Akhtar Mukul had compiled, the government recognized the five in 2000. The three others shot dead by the police were Abdul Awal, 10-year-old Ohidullah, and an unidentified teenager.
The Pakistani government press note, however, admitted the deaths of Barkat, Rafique, Jabbar, and Shafiur (identified as Shafiqur Rahman) and claimed that Awal and Ohidullah died in road accidents.
The Daily Azad newspaper reported nine deaths and the disappearance of many bodies, while the Sainik said it was seven. Kolkata's Anandabazar said nine people were killed during the protests.
The US consulate in Dhaka tallied the deaths at 14, exiled Pakistani writer Lal Khan at 26, and movement activist Kabir Uddin Ahmed at eight.
Tajuddin Ahmad said the death toll on February 21 would be 10-11 as per unofficial sources. The following day, police and the military killed five people in areas around the High Court, judge's court, and other parts of Old Dhaka, while the unofficial figure was 12.
The police snatched the bodies from the DMCH on February 21 and 22.
Language Movement veteran Ahmed Rafiq reported that a youth was shot near the DU playground on February 21. The Ellis Commission also acknowledged the passing of a shooter at this location.
In front of the DMCH hostel, another young person received a gunshot wound to the head and passed away instantly.
An unidentified teenager reportedly died on Fuller Road the same day.