Bangladesh scraps August 15 holiday for Bangabandhu

NEW DELHI: A draft has been prepared by the interim government in Bangladesh to scrap August 15th as a national holiday. Forty-nine years ago, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated on this day, and it has since been observed as a holiday and a day of mourning.

Extra police and paramilitary forces will be deployed across Bangladesh to maintain law and order. A formal notification on scrapping the holiday is yet to be made.

“There have been reports that members of the Awami League will pay their tributes to a portrait of Bangabandhu on this day, while right-wing political parties want the holiday scrapped. Meanwhile, the police uniforms (which were designed by the previous regime) are likely to be changed, as they feature a logo of a boat, which also happens to be an election symbol of the Awami League,” Professor Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah, a political commentator from Dhaka, told this newspaper.

A 10-member committee was set up on Monday to work on designing the new uniform and logo and has been asked to submit a report within one week.