Bangladesh scraps national holiday on Aug 15 marking Bangabandhu's assassination

Dhaka: Bangladesh's interim government on Tuesday cancelled a national holiday on August 15, marking the assassination of the country's founder and deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina's father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. According to the press release issued by the Chief Advisor's Office, the cancellation of the August 15 holiday was approved in today's meeting of the Advisory Council.

Also Read: Sheikh Mujibur Rahman: Bangladesh's founding father gets the Saddam Hussein treatment

This decision was announced on Tuesday through an official notification.


The sources said the decision came a day after Yunus met with different political parties, excluding the Awami League. Some of them were in favour of keeping the day as a national holiday and some others were opposed to it.

Soon after Hasina resigned and left the country, an angry mob virtually set a museum dedicated to Bangabandhu on fire.

The museum was originally Bangbandhu's private residence, where he was killed along with his family members in a military coup staged by a group of junior officers on August 15, 1975, while Hasina, her two minor children, and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana were in Germany on a short visit.