The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

A group of vested politicians practises of distorting the glorious history of liberation war for their trivial political interests, said sector commanders at a seminar yesterday.

They said success in the war does not depend upon the magnitude of military forces involved, as the collective effort of people is inevitably needed for this. This was proved in the Liberation War-1971.

They made the remarks while recalling many incidents of the liberation war on the second-day of a two-day long seminar, organized by Bangladesh Itihas Parishad at the auditorium of the Teacher Student Centre (TSC) of Dhaka University.

Prof AF Salauddin presided over the seminar, while Maj Gen KM Shafiullah, Maj Gen CR Datt, Lt Col Abu Osman Chowdhury and Maj Rafiqul Islam, among others, addressed it.

Terming the language movement as the catalyst of the partition of Pakistan, Maj Gen KM Shafiullah said the seed of breaking up erstwhile Pakistan was sown with the speech of Jinnah 'Urdu alone will be the lingua franca of Pakistan'.

He said Ziaur Rahman was never appointed as Sector Commander. He was in safe shelter at Chittagong after being failed to enter into the sector commanders' committee.

That is why his name is uttered after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, he added.

Underscoring the need of preserving the history from distortion, Maj Rafiqul Islam said the history of liberation war is going to be divided into two political paths.

The new generation could not learn the true history due to this although they should have to be encouraged to learn, he added.

He also asserted that the true history of the liberation war could not be written based on 'oral speech' and 'documentary', yet the opinion of the people and direct instances needs to be added.