Politics
Remembering 1971: When Pakistan Army Made Priest Of Kali Temple Near Dhaka Recite Qalma Before Shooting Him Dead
- This 16 December, a recollection of the East Pakistan genocide reemphasises the need for the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Refugees in a makeshift camp at Bongaon, fleeing fighting on the border between India and Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War, in 1971. (Mark Edwards/Keystone Features/Getty Images)
One of the holiest places for the worshippers of goddess Kali, the Ramna Kali temple was targeted by the Pakistani occupation army in 1971.
The report on the destruction prepared by eminent Bangladeshi historian Prof Muntashir Mamun along with Saharia Kabir, Basudeb Dhar & Dwipen Chatterjee, gives a graphic account of the destruction:
However, the climax of the destruction came when Bangladesh was liberated.
The destroyed temple for the goddess worshiping pagan Hindus, was neither rebuilt, nor turned into a monument in the memory of the massacred Hindus.
Supposedly secular, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman confiscated the land of the temple from the Hindu board under the Enemy Property Act and handed it over to the Department of Public Works.
The remains which survived the Pakistani carnage were bulldozed.
In 1972, after finishing what the Pakistanis did, the Bangladesh government handed the land over to the Dhaka Club, an elite entertainment body.
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