Textbook 'incorrectly' describes Agartala Case: Shawkat

Deputy Speaker Shawkat Ali yesterday said the background of the historic Agartala Case was "incorrectly" described in the school textbooks.
He urged the education ministry to take steps for its correction.
"Two textbooks for class 9 and 10 carried a nearly identical description of the case from which it appears that the Agartala case was merely a political event related to Bangabandhu's historic six-point movement," he told BSS on the sidelines of a discussion on the historic event.
Shawkat added: "But as a matter of fact, several military officers and civil servants were involved in the case as we wanted to liberate the country from Pakistan through an armed
revolution under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman" which was not directly linked to the six-point.
He added that as part of the plan called as "the Agartala Plot" navy steward Mujibur Rahman and educationist Mohammad Ali Reza went to Agartala to seek the Indian support for Bangladesh's independence.
"Agartala case was not related to the six-point movement . .. had it been so the accused like ours -- the military and civil government officials -- would not have the scope to get involved, though we had wholehearted support for it," said Shawkat who was a captain of Pakistan army at that time and was arrested to face the trial.
Earlier, speaking at the discussion organised by Oitihashik Agartala Mamla Mulyayan Parishad, the deputy speaker urged the textbook board authorities to evaluate equally bullet-wounded flight sergeant Fazlul Haque along with martyred flight sergeant Zahirul Haque.
The Pakistani troops shot them simultaneously as they awaited trial in military custody in Dhaka cantonment.
The Agartala Case, popularly called Agartala Conspiracy Case, which had set a new course in the history of the country's independence struggle, was filed in early 1968 implicating Bangabandhu and 34 other Bengali civil servants and army, navy
and air force officers and politicians for hatching a "plot".
The case was officially called State vs. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and others while the then Ayub Khan regime of Pakistan resolved to frame charge against 35 people with Bangabandhu being the prime accused.
The case ultimately resulted in the fall of General Ayub Khan in 1969 and subsequently led the nation towards the 1971 Liberation War.
"The Agartala incident was not untrue . . . we wanted to liberate the country from Pakistan," Shawkat told a function three months back as he urged all concerned to disseminate the fact to the countrymen to spread the spirit of the War of Liberation.