Govt revives project to preserve freedom fighters’ graves
Asif Showkat Kallol || BusinessInsider
A general view of Azimpur Graveyard. Photo: Collected
The government has decided to start working on a project to preserve the graves of freedom fighters located in 24 districts across the country by developing them in the same design.
The initiative was taken to make the graves easily recognisable to the common people among other graves.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) in October 2018 approved Tk 460.97 crore for the project which was scheduled for competition by June 2021.
However, the project was on suspension due to the Covid-19 pandemic, said an official of the Finance Division who attended a meeting held recently regarding the project.
According to the meeting, the project will now end in June 2024.
According to the project proposal, 20,000 graves of freedom fighters would be preserved under the Preservation and Development (First Phase) of Shaheed (martyrs) and Bir Muktijouddha Project by 2024.
Only 1,338 graves have been identified and developed over the last 50 years. Most of these graves are in Dhaka, Cox’s Bazar, Dinajpur, Nilphamari, Gaibandha, Cumilla, Chandpur and Bhaghart districts.
“The design of the graves has been completed, and a tender has been invited for their development,” Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque told the Business Insider Bangladesh on Tuesday.
“The members of upazila parishads and upazila muktijoddha command council are jointly tasked with identifying the graves of the martyred freedom fighters of the 1971 Liberation War and the ones who died later,” Mozammel said.
Gradually, the government will preserve all graves of freedom fighters, the minister added.
Asifur Rahman Bhuiyan, deputy chief architect of the Department of Architecture has designed the graves. Bhuiyan is also the designer of ‘Shikha Chironton’ at Suhrawardi Udyan and the graves of the seven Bir Sreshthas.
The graves will look like a narrow bed tilted slightly upwards like the lowered backrest of a chair, according to the project paper. Its tilted end will have a circle in it symbolising the national flag of the country.
Besides, the graves of the Hindu, Buddhist and Christian freedom fighters will have some additional symbols depending on their religious faiths,” it said.
