Star, Grameenphone launch online Liberation War archive
“Freedom in the Air”, an online repository of the Liberation War with rare video footage including documentaries, exclusive video interviews; rarely seen images, articles, stories and documents, and newspaper clippings can be accessed from today at The Daily Star website, www.thedailystar.net/freedom-in-the-air.
The website was launched yesterday jointly by the newspaper and Grameenphone in the capital's The Daily Star Centre.
The most significant materials accessible at the website perhaps are the two declassified reports on the sensational Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report, a judicial inquiry prepared in July 1972 that proved the genocide by the Pakistani occupation army, and the dissent cables sent by Archer K Blood, the US consul general in Dhaka, describing the genocide.
In addition to a timeline of Bangladesh's history from 1940 to 1971, an interactive war calendar prepared with the help of the Liberation War Museum describes the major events of each day in 1971.
It also includes about 14 clips of battle maps obtained from a book of KM Shafiullah, a sector commander of the Liberation War.
Currently viewers can also access 44 videos on different subjects categorised as events leading to the Declaration of Independence, March Crackdown, Genocide, From War Fields, Rape, Killing of Intellectuals, Pak Army's Surrender, Victory Celebrations, Role of Collaborators and Documentaries made on the war including Gita Mehta's “Dateline Bangladesh” and “9 Months to Freedom (1975)” by Indian filmmaker S Sukhdev.
Video interviews of war heroes including KM Shafiullah, commander of Crack Platoon guerrillas Nasiruddin Yusuf Bacchu and Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra artist Nasreen Ahmad, conducted by The Daily Star, can also be viewed.
The website also provides access to 48 international media reports published in 1971 as well as numerous articles, interviews, autobiographies and book reviews published in The Daily Star and international newspapers on 1971.
The photo section offers 36 rare photographs from Magnum Photos along with 111 from the personal collection of Mannan Mashhur Zarif.
The homepage gives a glimpse of the entire website along with the fact sheet providing statistics on deaths, rape victims, war children and abortions, refugees and refugee camps and the Pakistani army and its collaborators.
Grameenphone Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Mahmud Hossain said one barrier to internet use was a lack of content.
He hoped that the website would fill that void, providing access to a huge amount of content on the Liberation War to the young generation.
Inam Ahmed, deputy editor of the newspaper heading the non-profit project, said military archives of the country as well as India would be contacted for maps and documents related to the war.
“There will also be a system of outsourcing so that anyone with information or materials in their personal collection which has not been archived can share those with us,” he said.
Reminiscing about March 26, 1971 after a rare video footage of the mass killing at Dhaka University was shown at the launching, Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of The Daily Star, said the newspaper was proud to be a part of the project.
He hoped that the project would become the most valuable, relevant and rich online portal of the Liberation War.
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