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After a mob vandalised and set fire to the historic residence of Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Dhaka, his daughter and deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in an emotional message to her supporters, said her opponents can erase the structure, but can't wipe out the history of her family.
Hasina, who has been living in India since she fled Bangladesh in August 2024 following a massive student-led protest that toppled her 16-year regime, made the remarks during a virtual audio address posted on her Awami League party's Facebook account
"Why do they fear a house? We live for those memories of Dhanmondi... Last time they set this house on fire, now they are destroying it. Have I not done anything for this country? Then why such disrespect? The only memory that both my sister and I have clung to is being wiped out... I want to ask my people who is behind this. I want justice... A structure can be erased, but history cannot be wiped out," an emotional Hasina, who sounded like she was in tears, said.
The ousted Premier warned the opponents must remember that history takes its revenge.
A large group of protesters vandalised and set on fire to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's residence in Dhaka on Wednesday during Hasina's live online address organised by the Awami League's now-disbanded student wing Chhatra League.
Witnesses said several thousand people rallied in front of the house in the capital's Dhanmondi area since early evening following a social media call for a "Bulldozer Procession" as Hasina was supposed to make her address at 9 pm (BST). The house was seen as an iconic symbol in Bangladesh's history as Mujibur largely led the pre-independence autonomy movement for decades from the residence.
Hasina said she and her only surviving sibling had donated their ancestral house to a trust as public property, turning the building into the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, as Sheikh Mujib was fondly called "Bangabandhu" or "Friend of Bengal" since the late 1960s when his movement for autonomy from Pakistan turned into a mass upheaval in 1969.
The 32 Dhanmondi residence was also set on fire earlier on August 5 last year when Hasina's nearly 16-year Awami League regime was toppled and she secretly left the country along with her younger sister Sheikh Rehana for India on a Bangladesh Air Force flight.
During her address, Hasina also called upon the countrymen to organise a resistance against the current regime. "They are yet to have the strength to destroy the national flag, the constitution and the independence that we earned at the cost of the lives of millions of martyrs with a bulldozer," Hasina said in an apparent reference to Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus's incumbent regime, installed by the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement.
The student movement earlier promised to scrap Bangladesh's 1972 Constitution as they promised to bury the "Mujibist constitution", while some far-right groups also suggested a change of the national anthem adopted by the Sheikh Mujib-led post-independence government.
She also mentioned past assassination attempts on her life and said, "If Allah has kept me alive through all this, there must be some work left for me. Otherwise, how could I have escaped death so many times?"
In a direct accusation, she suggested that the current Muhammad Yunus-led regime orchestrated an alleged plot to eliminate her and her family. "The meticulous plan by Muhammad Yunus this time was to kill me and my sister," she said.
Further criticising Yunus, Hasina stressed that during her regime, she had helped his Grameen Bank and its ventures with funding of 400 crore Bangladeshi taka. "But the entire amount was laundered. Bangladesh is suffering due to one man's personal ambitions," she claimed.
In her speech, Hasina, however, said the ordinary students were used by Yunus for an orchestrated movement to grab the state power and urged them to go back to their studies to build their future to serve the country. "At this age, it is easy to be manipulated," she said hinting that young minds are vulnerable to manipulation.