Staff make memorial with thrown away carriages, engines

Workers and officials of Saidpur Railway Workshop placed floral wreaths yesterday at the altar of their newly built memorial Adamya Swadhinata in honour of the 178 martyrs of the workshop who were burnt alive by the barbaric Pakistan forces during the Liberation War.

From early morning of the 45th Victory Day yesterday, workers and officials began to assemble to place wreaths at the memorial beside the main gate of the workshop while the members of railway security force saluted.

It is a unique example of dedication and innovation as old and thrown away spare parts of rail engines and carriages were used to make the memorial in the shape of a running train.

Monjur-ul-Alam Choudhury, former divisional superintendent (DS) of the workshop, inspired the railway staff to build the memorial as he was deeply shocked to know how brutally the barbaric Pakistan army and their collaborators, mostly Biharis, killed the 178 people by throwing them into the burning furnace used to melt iron plates.

The 19-foot-high memorial, designed by a panel of railway staff, includes our National Flag made of steel plate at the top representing creation of the nation, said Nur Ahmed Hossain, present DS of the railway workshop.

Below the metallic national flag at the top, there is a miniature broiler and a red coloured burning furnace, serving as reminders of throwing of the railway workers and officers to be roasted alive by Pakistan army and their collaborators.

At the left side is a rail engine attached with a gear indicating motion of a newborn nation and at its right, the shade (roof) of the railway workshop rising step by step is shown.

On a flat brass plate attached in the front there is inscription of the famous poem of late Shamsur Rahman, "Tomake pabar jonne hey swadhinata------------".

The workers and officials voluntarily built the memorial from their obligation to have the post-independence generation realise how great sacrifices their forefathers made for freedom of this nation, said workshop DS Nur Ahmed Hossain.

Workers took part in building the memorial with thrown away materials like scrap MH plates of rail carriages, MH pipes used at coach floors, angles, old rusty rail tracks, old nuts, bolts etc to build the memorial, said Moksedul Momin, president of Saidpur Railway Workshop unit of Sramik League.