Desk Report:

The historic ‘Mass Upsurge Day’, commemorating the 1969’s movement for autonomy from the then East Pakistan that eventually led to the Liberation War and the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971, is being observed on Wednesday (January 24) in a befitting manner.

Different political and socio-cultural organisations have taken separate programmes in observance of the day.

On January 24, 1969, Matiur Rahman Mallik, a standard IX student of Nabakumar Institution, and Rustam Ali, a rickshaw-puller, were killed in a police firing on demonstrators in Dhaka as Pakistani rulers desperately tried to suppress the popular uprising.

The killings spread intense protests across the country that eventually saw the fall of the autocrat Ayub regime.

It is said that the day teaches Bangladeshis the values of democracy and protest against oppression.