https://www.opindia.com/2024/08/ban...ts-bangladesh-are-wiping-out-nations-history/
Bangladesh has descended into utter chaos as Islamists have taken over the country after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned from her post and left the country. While violent protests and vandalism have been rampant since July, on the 5th of August, the violent protestors destroyed several Bangladeshi historical heritage sites in their bid to wipe out the legacy of “Bangabandhu” Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Several heritage sites associated with Bangladesh’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, were vandalised during the recent conflict.
On Monday, the unruly mob destroyed the
Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in the Dhanmondi area in Dhaka. This museum was dedicated to Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1975.
Rahman’s residence “Bangabandhu Bhaban” was also attacked by the protestors
Similarly, the protesters in Dhaka climbed atop a large statue of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s father and hammered the statue’s head with an axe. Who would have thought that one day the very people Mujibur Rahman sought freedom for would destroy his legacy?
Notably, back in 2020, it was reported that two Madarsa students vandalised Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s statue in Kushtia after being influenced by the anti-sculpture statements from Hefajat-e-Islam leaders Mamunul Haque and Faizul Haque. Clearly, the ideology behind the assassination of Rahman was very much active in the country over the years and has ultimately taken over Bangladesh.
The unrest, which started as a student movement against the quota system, soon witnessed the involvement of opposition parties like Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), fuelling widespread chaos and destruction.
Bangladesh was established in 1971 to escape the horrors committed by Pakistan’s military and Islamist radicals during the Liberation War. The ongoing vandalism of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s legacy contrasts sharply with Pakistan’s attitude towards its historical and cultural heritage. Pakistan, motivated by Islamist fundamentalism, frequently targets and destroys its ancient heritage sites, even ancient monuments thousands of years old, because the Islamists believe idols are ‘haram’.
