Bangladesh
March 7 Committee formed to look into the 'mistake' of the March 7 speech in the constitution
A writ petition has been filed in the court alleging that some parts of the historic speech delivered by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on March 7, 1971 were not included in the constitution.
As per the directions of the court, a committee has been constituted to find the correct speech on March 7.
On October 6, the Ministry of Information formed a committee and issued an order. The committee has been asked to submit a report to the secretary of the information ministry within a month. The chairman of the seven-member committee is the director general of Bangladesh Television. The members of the committee are: Director General of the Department of Film and Publication (DFP), Director General of Bangladesh Betar, President of Bangla Academy Professor Shamsuzzaman Khan, eminent historian and writer Dr. Muntasir Uddin Khan Mamun and former Deputy Director General of Bangladesh Betar Ashfaqur Rahman Khan.
The Director General of Press Institute Bangladesh (PIB) will be the Member Secretary of the Committee.
As per the directions of the court writ petition, the committee has been asked to examine the necessary documents, then published and circulated newspapers and audio visual footage to confirm the real historical speech given by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on March 7, 1971 at the then racecourse ground.
A writ petition was filed in the High Court on March 5 challenging the failure of the authorities to select some words of Bangabandhu's March 7 speech in the constitution and to omit some words including misrepresentation of sentence and sentence structure. Lawyer Subir Nandi Das filed the petition in the High Court on behalf of a man named Kashed Ali of Raynagar village in Rajbari.
According to the petitioner's lawyer, the way Bangabandhu delivered his historic speech did not fit into the constitution properly. In many places of speech in the constitution, some words have been omitted including word choice, sentence, mis-presentation of sentence structure. As Bangabandhu said in his speech Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Rangpur.
But the word Khulna is not in the speech included in the constitution. Bangabandhu said that power should be handed over to the people's representatives. But the constitution says 'hand'. Bangabandhu said twice in his speech, ‘This time the struggle is for liberation, this time the struggle is for freedom.’ But this sentence has been written once in the constitution.
