Nation set to celebrate Victory Day tomorrow

Dhaka (Dec 14, 2020): The nation is all set to celebrate the 50th Victory Day tomorrow, the most precious day of Bangalee people, as the country was liberated from Pakistani occupation forces through a nine-month-long bloodstained War of Liberation in 1971.

Bangladesh emerged as an independent country on December 16, under the leadership of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the cost of the supreme sacrifice of three millions of people and the dignity of nearly half a million of women.

The day is a public holiday.

The Victory Day this year has a different dimension as the day is set to be observed in the ‘Mujib Barsho’ on the occasion of the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from March 2020-March 2021 just ahead of the country’s golden jubilee of independence to be celebrated in 2021.

The pandemic of coronavirus has paralysed the entire world and in the face of pandemic, people have been asked not to attend any public gathering in person to avoid infection.

Taking the issue into account, different socio-cultural, political, educational institutions and and government and nongovernment organisations have chalked out a series of programmes to celebrate the glorious victory following the health guideline.

Besides, the government has taken several programmes to celebrate the day at the national level amid due festivity.

The programmes include a 31-gun salute, placing of wreaths at the monuments to pay homage to martyrs, hoisting of the national flags atop all government, semi-government and private offices and offices of autonomous bodies across the country, decorating city streets with miniature national flags and colourful festoons and illumination of important buildings and establishments, roads and street islands at night.

National dailies will bring out special supplements on the occasion while Bangladesh Postal Department will release memorial postal stump to mark the day.

The state-owned and private television channels and radio stations will broadcast special programmes highlighting the Liberation War.

Wreaths will be placed at National Memorial at Savar at dawn and at the portrait of Bangabandhu in front of Bangabandhu Bhaban on Dhanmondi 32 No. road in Dhaka.

Bangladesh missions abroad will also observe the day through various programmes.

The victory day celebration had reached a new height following the UNESCO’s recognition of Bangabandhu’s historic March 7th Speech as a part of the world’s documentary heritage in 2017.

On October 30 in 2017, the UNESCO announced the prestigious acknowledgement of one of the world’s most glorious speeches, through which Bangabandhu effectively decelerated the country’s independence in a mammoth public rally at Ramna Racecourse ground (now Suhrawardy Udyan) in Dhaka on March 7, 1971.

The speech inspired the Bengali nation in their quest for freedom and energised freedom loving people for freeing the country through War of Liberation.

Meanwhile, many government and non-government offices, foreign missions and some roads across the capital Dhaka have already been decorated with colorful lights, banners and festoons to observe the day with due solemnity.