Joler Gaan recalls Assam's language martyrs

Popular Bangladeshi Band troupe Joler Gaan has performed in Silchar of Assam in India in remembrance of the martyrs in the Bengali Language Movement in Barak Valley, Assam.The organizers Bhasa Shahid Station Shahid Smaran Samiti invited the troupe to perform on Saturday, reports news agency UNB.

This massacre is compared with the massacre in Jalianwalabag or the one in Bangladesh on 21 February 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bengali, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot to death by police in Dhaka, capital of present day Bangladesh.

The Bengali Language Movement in Barak Valley, Assam was a protest against the decision of the Government of Assam to make Assamese the only official language of the state even though a significant proportion of the population was Bengali speaking.

The main incident, in which 11 people were killed by State police, took place on May 19, 1961. Nine persons died on that day while two died later.

The deceased include Kanailal Niyogi, Chandicharan Sutradhar, Hitesh Biswas, Satyendra Deb, Kumud Ranjan Das, Sunil Sarkar, Tarani Debnath, Sachindra Chandra Pal, Birendra Sutradhar, Sukamal Purakayastha and Kamala Bhattacharya.