'Why Am I Still Alive?' Emotional Sheikh Hasina's Message As Mob Destroys Bangladesh Founder's House

Last Updated:February 06, 2025, 08:29 IST

There was reportedly a social media call for 'Bulldozer Procession' as Sheikh Hasina was supposed to make her address at 9 pm (BST).

After the fall of her government in August, Sheikh Hasina is maintaining low profile and is staying closely connected to a select group of trusted Awami League leaders. (Reuters File Photo)

An emotional Sheikh Hasina released a voice message for Bangladesh residents saying that she is alive because her work is yet not over. The deposed prime minister of the neighbouring country further said that the mob can demolish her house but will never be successful in erasing the history.

Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is known as the founder of Bangladesh. The leader’s message came as a large group of protesters on Wednesday vandalised and set on fire Rahman’s residence in Dhaka during a live online address of Sheikh Hasina.

The deposed PM, who seemed to be in tears, said, “We live for those memories of Dhanmondi. Now they are destroying that house. Last time they set this house on fire, now they are smashing it as well. Have I not done anything? Have I not worked for you all? Then why this house from where my father gave call for freedom has been ransacked? I want to ask my people who is behind this? I want justice."

Reports quoted witnesses as saying that several thousand people rallied in front of the house at the capital’s Dhanmondi area, which was earlier turned into a memorial museum, since early evening following a social media call for “Bulldozer Procession" as Hasina was supposed to make her address at 9 pm (BST).

Hasina delivered her address organised by the Awami League’s now disbanded student wing Chhatra League and 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 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.

She added: “They can demolish a building, but not the history… but they must also remember that the history takes its revenge." 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 change of the national anthem adopted by Sheikh Mujib-led post-independence government.

The house became an iconic symbol in Bangladesh history as Sheikh Mujib largely led the pre-independence autonomy movement for decades from the house while during the successive Awami League rule when it was turned into a museum, foreign heads of state or dignitaries used to visit in line with state protocol.

The 32 Dhanmondi residence was 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.

Hasina said she and her only surviving sibling had donated their ancestral house to a trust as a public property, turning the building into 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.

(With inputs from PTI)

Dhaka, Bangladesh

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