Bangladesh: To the spirit of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
‘The song is ended, but the melody lingers on…’
( February 23, 2018, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested by the Pakistan’s military dictator president General Ayub Khan on political reasons sometimes in 1966 and after two years in jail, an official sedition trial in in 1968 in a military court was opened which is widely known as the Agartala Conspiracy Case. Mujib and 34 Bengali civil and military officers were accused by the Pakistani government of colluding with Indian government agents in a scheme to divide Pakistan and threaten its unity, order and national security. The plot was guessed to have been planned in the city of Agartala, in the Indian state of Tripura. The outcry and unrest over Mujib’s arrest and the charge of sedition against him destabilised the-then East Pakistan amidst large protests and strikes. Various Bengali political and student groups added demands to address the issues of students, workers and the poor, forming a larger “11-point plan” to oust the dictator and military President Ayub Khan of Pakistan. The government caved to the mounting pressure, dropped the charges on February 22, 1969 and unconditionally released Mujib and the alleged co-accused on the same day. He came out from incarceration as a public hero.
