Bangabandhu urges people to carry on agitation

With the end of the non-cooperation movement's second phase coming closer, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman called on his countrymen to continue their fight for freedom.

New orders were announced for the future.

Bangabandhu had said, “Bangladeshi citizens' fight cannot go to waste. We're indomitable because we're ready to die.”

People in East Pakistan were still defying the martial law and boycotting official duties.

On this day in 1971, Bangabandhu and National Awami Party leader Abdul Wali Khan met at Bangabandhu's residence in the presence of other AL leaders.

Following the meeting, Bangabandhu said the fight would be for the independence of Bangladesh and Bangladeshis.

He had given four conditions to the National Parliamentary Committee meeting and, to press the authorities to accept them, rallies and processions were brought out in Dhaka.

Council Muslim League chief Mian Mumtaz Muhammad Khan Daultana said Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's demands were reasonable and should be accepted in order to bring an end to the political crisis.

In this regard, Leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Parliamentary Party Maulana Mufti Mahmud said, “In spite of the disastrous gravity of the situation in East Pakistan, of the tremendous heat and pressure generated there and the scope thus given to disruptive forces, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has shown his stature and his firm commitment to the solidarity of Pakistan, by putting in the present crisis the four demands that are not in the least parochial or regional, but exclusively based on a national approach.”

Syed Siddiqul Hasan Gilani, Jamaat-e-Islami's parliamentary affairs chief, said the responsibility for the present crisis was in the hands of People's Party chief ZA Bhutto who was the one to aggravate the situation by threatening to boycott the National Assembly session on March 3.

Meanwhile at a rally in Karachi's Nishtar Park, Bhutto proposed that the power be handed over to the major parties of Pakistan. There were two wings of the country. The People's Party was in majority in the western wing and in East Pakistan, it was the Awami League

If power was to be transferred to the majorities of the two wings, it should be given to the AL in the east and the People's Party in the West Pakistan, he said.

He then urged Bangabandhu to sit for a dialogue.

On the other hand, National League chief Ataur Rahman Khan, in a rally in Barisal, called for the formation of a temporary government led by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

On this night, while urging to continue agitation, Bangabandhu announced new orders for the future. He knew very well what was to come and he knew he had to prepare the people for it, to overcome it, to win it. 

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman said, “Bangladeshi citizens' fight cannot go to waste. We're indomitable because we're ready to die.”

And, for freedom, they were.

[Sources: Liberation War Museum website; The Daily Star report]