Dhaka: Sajeeb Wazed, son of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has accused the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government of unleashing violence and “criminalizing grief” after prayers were disrupted, murals of the Liberation War were vandalized, and several people were arrested for mourning the death anniversary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, regarded as the Father of the Nation, was assassinated in 1975 along with members of his family. Traditionally observed as National Mourning Day, the commemoration was scrapped this year by the Yunus government, which has also sought to curtail Awami League activities.
According to Wazed, Yunus’s press secretary had threatened citizens against holding mourning events. When people ignored the warning, he alleged, Yunus-backed police struck “with fury”, arresting teachers, imams, professionals and community leaders overnight. Their only crime, he said, was “loyalty to memory and truth”.
“Across Bangladesh, grief has been criminalized. On August 15, the day that marks the assassination of the nation's founding father, citizens who dared to remember their liberator found themselves hunted, silenced, and dragged into darkness,” Wazed posted on X.
He said that under Yunus’s “iron grip”, ordinary people, including teachers, students, scholars, women and rickshaw pullers, had become helpless victims of state vengeance. A day once marked by prayers, community solidarity and feeding the poor, he added, had now been turned into a “battlefield of fear”.
Wazed alleged that Yunus imposed an “unconstitutional ban” on mourning and sought to erase Liberation War history. “Yunus's goal is chillingly clear -- to erase the memory of the Liberation War, to rewrite history, and to present himself as the so-called 'reset liberator' of Bangladesh,” he said.
Warning that the nation stood at a dangerous crossroads, Wazed said the crackdown on his grandfather’s supporters showed that “the very soul of the Republic is under siege”.
“On August 15, Yunus may have tried to bury memory with repression, but in every arrested teacher, every silenced imam, every broken mural, the legacy of Bangabandhu burns brighter still,” he added.