BSS-39 Eminent citizens launch “Sampriti Bangladesh’ to promote secularism

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BSS-39

SAMPRITI-BANGLADESH-LAUNCHING

Eminent citizens launch “Sampriti Bangladesh’ to promote secularism

DHAKA, July 7, 2018 (BSS) – A group of eminent personalities including academics, professionals and interfaith leaders today formed a grouping titled “Sampriti Bangladesh” to launch a campaign to promote the idea of secularism and communal harmony.

“The slogan of the platform is ‘Gahi Samyer Gan’ (Singing Song for Equity),” the platform said in a statement quoting a verse of National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam’s poem after it was floated at a meeting at the National Museum auditorium.

The forum drew from the academic arena figures like former Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor Professor AAMS Arefin Siddique, Professor Emeritus Dr Serajul Islam Chowdhury, writer and educationist Professor Mohammed Zafar Iqbal, Professor Emeritus AK Azad Chowdhury, UGC Chairman Professor Abdul Mannan and Professor Syed Anwar Hossain.

Civil society representatives and professionals who were inducted in the grouping are Liberation War Museum Trustee Sarwar Ali, journalist Abed Khan, former DUCSU Vice-President Mahfuza Khanom, journalist Haroon Habib and Jatiya Press Club President Muhammad Shafiqur Rahman.

Islamic Foundation Director General Samim Md Afjal, Dhaka Ramkrishna Mission General Secretary Guru Sebananda, Bangladesh Christian Association President Nirmal Rozario, Buddhist leader Suddhananda Mahathero and ISKCON representative Sukhil Das are among the other members of the platform.

Cultural personality Pijush Bandapadhya was made convenor of Sampriti Bangladesh while he chaired the meeting marking the launch of the forum with Mamun Al Mahtab being its member secretary.

“No democratic country can run without secularism,” Prof Serajul Islam Chowdhury told the meeting. Prof Arefin Siddique said the ideal of secularism was ruined in the country following the assassination of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and that is why “we still need to talk about religious harmony in the 21st century”. “It is essential to build unity among people but unless discrimination among people could be removed communal harmony cannot be protected,” Prof AK Azad said. Mahfuza Khanom said basic principle of 1971 Liberation War was to build a secular country.

“A plot was carried out to make Bangladesh a religion-based country through the assassination of Bangabandhu in 1975. Such conspiracies are still going on,” she said.

BSS/pr/MKD/AR/2025 hrs