Shaheed Minar, Dhaka

Central Shaheed Minar

The central Shaheed Minar is a memorial to the 1952 language movement. It is located on the outskirts of Dhaka Medical College in the center of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Every year on 21st February, thousands of people come here to pay their respects to the martyrs of the language movement. It is one of the tourist points located in the center of Dhaka.

History

The first Shaheed Minar was built very quickly and very unplanned. Students of Dhaka Medical College started the construction of the monument on the afternoon of February 23, 1952 and completed it in the night. The news of Shaheed Minar was sent to the paper on the same day. In memory of Shaheed Bir - the news of Shaheed Minar was published in the daily Azad under this headline.

The minaret is built at the eastern end of the bar number shed of the medical student hostel (barracks). Corners cross the street in the middle of the hostel. The purpose is to make it easy to see from the outside road and to come out of any shed and stand on the long drawn road inside. The Shaheed Minar was 10 feet high and 8 feet wide. The construction of the minaret was supervised by GS Sharfuddin (known as Engineer Sharfuddin), designed by Badrul Alam; Saeed Haider was with him. They were assisted by two masons. Bricks, sand and cement stored for the expansion of the medical college were brought from the warehouse of Piyaru Sardar in old Dhaka. The minaret is covered with a cloth after dawn. On the same day, that is, on the morning of 24 February, the father of Shaheed Shafiur unofficially inaugurated the Shaheed Minar on 22 February. Azad editor Abul Kalam Shamsuddin inaugurated the Shaheed Minar on February 26 at around 10 am. On the day of the inauguration, 27 February, the police and army surrounded the medical student hostel and demolished the first Shaheed Minar. Later, a Shaheed Minar was built at Dhaka College, which was also demolished at the behest of the government.

Finally, after the recognition of Bengali as one of the state languages ​​of Pakistan, the construction of the Central Shaheed Minar began in 1956. It was designed by sculptor Hamidur Rahman. But after the imposition of martial law in Pakistan in 1958 by Field Marshal Ayub Khan, work on the central Shaheed Minar came to a halt. Later, during the reign of Lieutenant General Azam Khan, its construction work was resumed. Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor Prof. A committee headed by Mahmud Hossain supervised the construction work. The original design was trimmed and the construction work was completed quickly. Original design fountains and murals of Novera Ahmed etc. are omitted. Construction was completed in early 1983. The new Shaheed Minar was inaugurated on 21 February 1983 by Hasina Begum, the mother of Abul Barkat, one of the martyred personalities of the language movement.

Architectural design

Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Haque February was celebrated spontaneously all over East Pakistan in 1958 by the United Front government on the initiative of Fazlul Haque and the Awami League. This made it easier to build new installations at the Shaheed Minar. Famous Bangladeshi painter Hamidur Rahman has been identified as the architect of the Shaheed Minar, which is associated with the memory of the great language movement. His imagery consisted of a high structure in the middle as a symbol of the loving bowed head of the mother, and two short structures as a symbol of the child on either side. Front courtyard. Murals on the back. There were also plans to place two murals of sculptor Novera Ahmed in the front yard. There were also plans to set up a fountain as a symbol of the tragic martyr's day. According to this plan, the construction work of the central Shaheed Minar started in November 1956. The design included a large area in front of the Dhaka Medical College Hostel. The original design was later simplified for the purpose of speedy completion.

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  Building a Shaheed Minar at Dhaka College, 1953

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  A Shaheed Minar outside Curzon Hall, 1953

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  A Shaheed Minar outside the Fine Arts building, University of Dhaka, 1953