The historic Rose Garden mansion in Tikatuli’s KM Das Lane was purchased by the government last September for the countless significant memories associated with it.
On Wednesday, KM Khalid, state minister for cultural affairs, visited the mansion and said: “Rose Garden is closely tied to the history of Bangladesh.”
On June 23, 1949, a group of nationalists broke away from the dominant Muslim League and formed the All Pakistan Awami Muslim League in Rose Garden. Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani was the president of the party. A brilliant, young, dynamic student leader with unparallel charisma called Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was one of the first joint secretaries of the party.
State Minister Khalid said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has taken initiatives to turn the mansion into the Dhaka City Museum. The museum’s main features are currently housed in Nagar Bhaban. The state minister was visiting to inspect the mansion firsthand before the plans were unveiled.
Altaf Hossain, director general of the Department of Archaeology, presented the planning proposal of the Dhaka City Museum.
The proposal says: “Without changing the original structure, the main building and the extended adjacent part of the house could be displayed in two sections.”
The first section uses ideogram of the palace, furniture, photography, paintings, newsreels and other historical ideograms in the main building of the mansion.
The second section will house ideograms of ancient Dhaka like ancient map, photographs, paintings, sculptures, stone clip, old coins, terracotta plaques, and other materials of historic value in the extended adjacent part of the building.
On September 16, 2018, the government purchased the palace at a cost of Tk331 crore from the former owner of the palace, Laila Raquib.
After the purchase, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced that Rose Garden would be turned into a museum to depict the history of Old Dhaka.
During the visit, Abu Hena Mostafa Kamal, secretary of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Additional Secretary Nizam Uddin and other officials were also present.
