Greeting the countrymen along with party leaders, activists and well-wishers on the occasion of Awami League’s (AL’s) 71st founding anniversary, Prime Minister and AL President Sheikh Hasina today said none will remain poor and homeless in the country.

“On this day I recall with respect the greatest Bengali of all times, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. I recall Awami League’s founding president Mawlana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani and general secretary Shamsul Haque. I recall with respect Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy,” she said in a message issued here marking the anniversary.

She recalled with respect the four national leaders, and all martyrs of struggles for freedom, Liberation War and struggles for democracy and all leaders and workers of AL who had embraced martyrdom to turn the party into the largest organization of masses.

Bangladesh Awami League was formed on June 23 in 1949 at “Rose Garden” on KM Das Lane in Dhaka to emancipate the Bangali nation and realize their rights, the premier said, adding Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was elected joint general secretary while he was in jail.

Noting that every achievement in this land was realized under the leadership of AL since its established, Sheikh Hasina said, “The Language Movement in 1952, the Jukta Front election in 1954, the anti-Ayub movement in 1962, the restoration of communal harmony after the 1964 riot, the six-point movement in 1966 and the mass upsurge in 1969- all took place under the leadership of the AL”.

In the general elections of 1970, the people of Bangladesh gave an absolute majority to the Awami League and in continuation to that, Bangabandhu on March 7 in 1971 declared that “This time the struggle is for our freedom. This time the struggle is for our independence” the AL president mentioned.

She continued that on the Black Night of March 25 in 1971, the Pakistani occupation forces swooped on the people and began the history’s most brutal genocide while Bangabandhu was also arrested.

The prime minister said Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, however, had declared the country’s independence using the then EPR wireless in the first hour of March 26 before his arrest.

The premier said the country had achieved its final victory on December 16 in 1971 following the Liberation War conducted under the AL government formed on April 10 with the public representatives and took oath of offices on April 17 at Mujibnagar in Meherpur district.

The thousand-year dream of Bengali nation- independent and sovereign Bangladesh was established, Sheikh Hasina added.

After independence when Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was busy in building ‘Sonar Bangla’ as dreamt by himself, the assassins killed Bangabandhu and most of his family members on the fateful night of August 15 in 1975, she said.

Subsequently on November 3 in 1975 the four national leaders were killed in prison to make Awami League leaderless, the Prime Minister said, adding that there were national and international conspiracies to destroy the AL, but those intrigues went in vain.