Thaindian News

Dhaka, March 8 (IANS) Bangladesh’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had made detailed plans for the liberation from Pakistan during a stay in London in 1969, his daughter and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said.
Sheikh Mujib discussed his plans at a meeting held a few months after his release from prison following a prolonged trial in the Agartala conspiracy case in which then Pakistan government had brought sedition charges against him and 34 others, Hasina told a meeting Sunday.

They were charged with conspiring to separate from then East Pakistan with help from neighbour India. Agartala is the capital of Tripura state in northeastern India.

“He went to London on Oct 22, 1969 following his release in the Agartala case on April 22 that year. I reached London the next day from Italy, where I was living with my husband,” bdnews24.com newspaper web site quoted her as saying.

“It was there that Bangabandhu (a title Mujib received in 1969 from political supporters) at a meeting made plans for liberation, including when the war would start, where our freedom fighters would be trained and where refugees would take shelter.

“All preparations were taken there (London). I was serving tea and entered the room several times where the meeting was being held. I heard their discussions,” the prime minister recalled.

Hasina was addressing a discussion here to mark her father’s historic March 7, 1971 speech, when he had called upon the people at a massive rally to prepare for independence struggle from Pakistan.

Hasina did not indicate who were present at the London meeting.

Political analysts here said her disclosure, reinforced by the claim of her own presence at the meeting, could be a scoring point in the ongoing debate on who actually declared the country’s independence.

Mujib’s role is disputed by opposition leader Khaleda Zia. Zia’s supporters claim that it was her husband and then Pakistan Army major Ziaur Rahman who had first broadcast a freedom speech.

Referring to this debate, Hasina urged all to go through the reports of intelligence agencies and foreign ministries of different countries.

Mujib, who became Bangladesh’s president, was assassinated in August 1975.

Ziaur Rahman, who became the army chief and later the president, was assassinated in 1981.