Preserving our Liberation War sites

It is unfortunate that a project undertaken by the government in 2017 to preserve historical sites linked to our Liberation War has been facing the same problems that the majority of our development projects usually do—it could not be completed within the deadline, the project duration was extended, and the cost also went up. Apparently, the Liberation War ministry chose 360 sites—killing fields of the Pakistani army, meeting places of freedom fighters and combat zones—in 293 upazilas to construct 284 memorials and 76 museums at a cost of Tk 179 crore. However, the ministry was able to complete only less than a third of the work by June this year, which was the first deadline of the project. According to relevant officials, the project has been extended by two more years and, consequently, the cost has gone up to Tk 206 crore.

The main reason for the delay in implementation was cited as "land related complications" by the project authorities. While such memorials are usually built on khas land, many of the sites earmarked for this project are private property which need to be acquired to build the sites. Shouldn't the project authorities have known this before designing the project? And, reportedly, only 23 sites have land-related problems. So what could be the reason for the delay in constructing memorials and museums in the remaining sites? We understand that the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down the pace of the work this year. But why was there so little progress in the previous two years? Clearly, this has happened due to the inefficiency and lack of coordination among the authorities concerned, among other reasons.

Many historical places linked to our Liberation War are lying unrecognised or gradually disappearing due to a lack of preservation or maintenance. So, this project undertaken by the government is very important and needs proper implementation. Our future generation will get a chance to learn about the proud history of our Liberation War from these sites; apart from a memorial, many of the sites will have a museum which will display memorabilia related to the war and a short history of the site, as well as a library which will feature books on the Liberation War. Therefore, we urge the government to solve all the problems including the land-related complications immediately and complete the project without further delay.