Important documents of country damaged deliberately: Shafique

Many important documents and records of the country including the one of Col Taher murder case have been damaged deliberately, revealed Law Minister Shafique Ahmed yesterday.
"After the birth of the country many important documents were destroyed wilfully…the records of Col Taher murder case asked by the High Court were damaged intentionally," he said.
The governments, which came to power through extra constitutional way in different times, damaged the documents of the democratic governments in their own interest, he said.
The law minister said this while inaugurating a daylong seminar titled 'The present state of archives and records management in Bangladesh and future plan' organised by Bangladesh Archives and Records Management Society at National Museum.
Shafique Ahmed said preserving written documents and records are extremely important for the government as well as the country.
The documents, which have enormous importance to the nation and give future directions, will have to be preserved in archives, he said, adding that the main aim of preserving the documents is to use those as reference in future.
"But, it is unfortunate that the original documents of the constitution are missing," he said. Even the press in which the main constitution was printed was in dilapidated condition, Shafique said, urging the National Museum authorities to bring the press in the museum.
He also called on the people who maintain archives to collect original manuscripts of the documents.
Coming on the reprint of the constitution, the minister said the questions, raised by the opposition party and some lawyers, regarding the reprint of it are illogical, baseless and politically ill-motivated.
He said the court carried out its constitutional responsibility by giving the verdict on the 5th amendment.
The rules, which were incorporated in the constitution through military order, were cancelled by declaring unconstitutional, he said.
Dhaka University Vice Chancellor Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, Suraiya Begum, secretary of ministry of cultural affairs, and Prof Sharif Uddin Ahmed, president of the society, spoke at the session.