Bangabandhu’s Homecoming Day today

Today is the historic Homecoming Day of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a key architect of the country’s independence.

Bangabandhu returned to a liberated Bangladesh via London and New Delhi on this day in 1972, after 290 days of confinement in Pakistan jail.

On March 25 night in 1971, Pakistan army arrested him from his Dhanmondi residence and sent him to a West Pakistani jail the following day.

In the jail, he had been counting days to the execution of the death sentence he was handed down in a farcical trial.

“I was a prisoner in the condemned cell awaiting hanging. Since the day I went to jail, I didn’t know whether I would be alive or not. I was mentally ready to die, but I knew Bangladesh would be liberated,” Mujib spoke emotionally about his ordeal in Pakistani prison at a news conference in London.

On arrival at Dhaka (Tejgaon) airport in the afternoon of January 10, Bangabandhu was greeted by tens of thousands of jubilant people who had been eagerly waiting to see their beloved leader since the victory on December 16.

From the airport, he was escorted to the Racecourse Maidan (now Suhrawardy Udyan) where he addressed a mammoth gathering.

Two days later, he took the oath of office as the country’s prime minister on January 12.