Zia's birth anniversary today

Today is the 79th birth anniversary of late president Ziaur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

Leaders and activists of the BNP and its front organisations will place wreaths at his grave in the capital's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar at 11:00am, said a party press release yesterday.

However, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, who has been “kept confined to her Gulshan political office” since January 3, will not be able to visit the grave and pay homage to her husband.

The BNP is set to observe the day without many of its leaders and activists as they are on the run to avoid arrest.

Meanwhile, Doctors' Association of Bangladesh, a pro-BNP physician body, has taken an elaborate programme to mark the birth anniversary of Ziaur Rahman.

The programme includes distributing warm clothes among the cold-stricken people and organising a free medical checkup and blood donation camp in front of the party's head office in Nayapaltan. 

The national and party flags will be hoisted atop all the BNP offices across the country on the day.

On this day in 1936, Ziaur was born at Bagbari under Gabtoli upazila in Bogra.

He was a sector commander during the Liberation War in 1971.

Ziaur stepped into politics by founding the BNP on September 1 in 1978. He was assassinated in an army coup in Chittagong on May 30, 1981.