FROM PAGE 3

against proposed inclusion of two more points to the Six-Point Demand while Bangabandhu was in Pakistani military captivity during the Agartala conspiracy case.

The premier said several AL leaders were willing to accept Bangabandhu’s release on parole while the trial of the case was underway, an idea that was strongly opposed by Bangamata who wanted his unconditional release.

Hasina said if Bangabandhu would have come out accepting parole conditions, no fierce mass movement would have sparked forcing the then Pakistani junta to abandon the case, freeing the accused.

Bangamata feared in that situation all the accused would have been hanged on high treason charges, if not killed in captivity like their co-accused Sergeant Zahirul Haque during the trial.

If Bangabandhu got released on parole, Bangladesh would have never witnessed its independence, Hasina said.

While talking to BSS earlier, academician and former Vice-Chancellor of Dhaka University Professor Dr AAMS Arefin Siddique said Bangamata had played a very crucial role in heartening Bangabandhu to pen the drafts of three invaluable autobiographical books which would always remain as precious asset in the history of Bangladesh.

“We talked about Bangabandhu at different times. His speeches and statements have been preserved in different ways. But expressing his own memories in his own words is a rare one and it has been possible because of Bangamata,” he said.

Prof Arefin said Bangabandhu in his own reminiscence in the “Unfinished Memoirs” also mentioned how Bangamata inspired him to write the books. He said after the independence, Bangamata had taken the initiative for the first time to rehabilitate the Biranganas (war heroines), the women who were brutally tortured and repressed by Pakistani occupational forces and their local collaborators during the Liberation War.

Under the leadership of Begum Mujib, the works of rehabilitating the repressed women began at Bangabandhu’s Dhanmondi-32 residence for the first time, he mentioned.

She gathered some distinguished women of society and held meetings at Dhanmondi-32 residence to decide how to cooperate with the government and extend support to Bangabandhu in rehabilitating the group of women, he said.