Sylhet remembers nine Liberation War martyrs

Nine people -- including Dr Shamsuddin Ahmed and three of his colleagues, who were brutally killed by the Pakistani army in 1971 -- were remembered in Sylhet yesterday.

Shamsuddin was a doctor of then Sylhet Medical College Hospital. He did not leave the hospital after the Liberation War started, and treated injured freedom fighters there.

On April 9 in 1971, freedom fighters attacked a Pakistan army convoy near the hospital.

After the incident, a group of Pakistani troops cordoned off the hospital and killed Dr Shamsuddin, Dr Shyamol Kanti Lala, nurse Mahmudur Rahman, ambulance driver Korban Ali and five others present there.

They were buried beside the hospital, and the site was later declared as Martyred Intellectuals' Graveyard of Sylhet.

After independence, Shaheed Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital was established there and the medical college hospital was relocated to Kajalshah area.

Yesterday, people from different walks of life paid tribute to them at Sylhet Martyred  Intellectual Memorial.

Later, a memorial programme was organised. The event was presided over by Nagorik Moitree convenor Advocate Somor Bijoy Shee and conducted by Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (Bapa)'s Sylhet chapter secretary Abdul Karim Kim.

Awami League's former organising secretary Advocate Misbah Uddin Siraj, and former president of Sylhet District Bar Association Advocate Emad Ullah Shahidul Islam spoke at the event, among others.