Bangladeshi community observes ‘Martyrs Day’

abu dhabi — Capital’s Bangladeshi community paid glowing tributes to those martyrs who fell for the Bangla language.

To mark the Great Martyrs’ Day and the International Mother Tongue Day, two events were held in the Capital, where Bangladeshi expatriates and students gathered in large numbers to remember the four students of Dhaka University who laid their lives on 21 February 1952 for declaring the Bangla an official language status.

It took four years of conflict and protests, when the central government granted official status to the Bengali language.

At the Embassy of Bangladesh over 200 expatriates joined at a ceremony where the national flag was hoisted at half mast. Ambassador Mohammed Imran lowered the national flag at half mast, as a mark of respect to the martyrs of the language movement. He also laid floral-wreath to the Shaheed Minar, a symbol of language martyrs.

On this occasion messages from the Bangladesh president Mohammed Abdul Hamid, Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina and foreign minister Shahriar Alam were read out.

Ambassador Imran spoke on the movement for Bengali language in 1952. He advised his fellow countrymen to teach their children Bangla language and urge them to study their history, promote their culture and heritage.

Later, another event was held at Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Bangladesh Islamia School, where a large number of people from different walks of life participated.

The ambassador distributed the prizes among the winners of painting competition, speech contest and essay writing competition.