Staff- correspondent: Today is January 24. The day commemorates the 1969’s movement for autonomy. On this day, young school student Matiur Rahman Mallik and a rickshaw puller Rustam were shot down by police on the streets of Dhaka. Their supreme sacrifices gave further momentum to the movement to oust the Pakistani military ruler General Ayub Khan from power, eventually leading to Liberation War and emergence of Independent Bangladesh in 1971.

The unrest began in 1966 with the Six-point movement of Awami League, it got momentum in 1969. The student agitation of 1968 turned into mass upsurge at the call of Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani to besiege the Governor House.

On January 20, Asaduzzaman, a student leader of Dhaka University, was shot dead by police during a procession, the student-mass movement took a stronger shape.

During the siege of the Secretariat on 24 January, the police forces of the dictatorial Ayub government opened fire. The teenager Matiur Rahman, who was a student of Class X of Nabakumar Institute in Dhaka was martyred. The irresistible consequence of this sacrifice paved the way for the fall of the the decade-long misrule of the dictator, self-proclaimed Field Marshal Ayub Khan.

This massive upsurge led to the withdrawal of Agartala Conspiracy Case.In the wake of the movement,Bangabandu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his co-accused of Agartala conspiracy case were acquitted from the case and were released from custody.

President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued separate messages on the occasion, expressing profound respect for those who had embraced martyrdom on 24th January in 1969.

Different political parties, student organisations and socio-cultural organisations have taken different programmes to mark the day and pay tribute to the martyrs of mass uprising .