The month of mourning began on Thursday to commemorate the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members on August 15, 1975.
The August 15 carnage is the ugliest chapter in the nation's history as the self-confessed killers not only assassinated the nation's founding father but also killed 16 other members of his family, friends and relatives.
The nation observes with a heavy heart the month of August as the month of mourning to recall the barbaric killings.
The martyrs included Bangabandhu's wife Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib, his sons Sheikh Kamal, Sheikh Jamal and Sheikh Russell, daughters-in-law Sultana Kamal and Rosy Jamal, Bangabandhu's brother Sheikh Naser, brother-in-law Abdur Rab Serniabat, nephew and youth leader Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni, Moni's pregnant wife Arzoo Moni, and Bangabandhu's military secretary Colonel Jamil.
Bangabandhu's two daughters – Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana – escaped the assassination as they were visiting Germany at the time.
With the killing of Bangabandhu, the greatest Bangalee of all time, a pall of gloom descended and a sense of deep sadness spread among the people in the country and across the globe.
The world protested and condemned the killing, saying it was an irreparable loss to millions of people in Bangladesh.
August is also black-marked with another conspiracy of assassination. The nation cannot ever forget the heinous attempt to kill Sheikh Hasina through grenade attacks in 2004.
The vested quarter, who had assassinated Bangabandhu in 1975 also tried to destroy the Awami League by killing its president, Sheikh Hasina, with grenades at an anti-terrorism rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka on August 21, 2004.
Sheikh Hasina narrowly escaped the attack suffering splinter injuries when 24 of her party men, including the Awami League's women affairs secretary Ivy Rahman, were killed and 500 others injured.
Like in previous years, different political and socio-cultural organizations, including the ruling Awami League and its associate bodies, have undertaken month-long programs to observe the month of mourning.
