NAOGAON,  – Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder today said the Pakistani occupation forces killed the intellectuals in 1971 to make the newly emerging Bangladesh brainless. “Pakistan army in connivance with their local collaborators Al-Badr, Al Shams killed the illustrious sons of Bangladesh to cripple the country intellectually,” he said.

The minister made this comment while talking to journalists after participating in a discussion marking the Martyrs Intellectuals Day at district Awami League office here this morning. He said the Pakistan occupation forces carried out the clandestine killing in a planned way so the newly independent Bangladesh never stand on own feet.

But they never thought that Bangalee is a nation of heroes, he said. “Bangalees established Bangla as their mother tongue through movement,” he added. The food minister called upon people to work for building a prosperous nation enriched with the ideology of the martyred intellectuals.

He said every people of Bangladesh have now become a soldier inspired with the ideology of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who had a dream to make Bangladesh a prosperous one.

District Awami League (AL) President Abdul Maleque, Barrister Nizam Uddin Jalil John MP, district AL Vice President Nirmal Krishna Saha, Organizing Secretary Javed Jahangir Sohel and leaders from other associate bodies, among others, attended the function.

Earlier, the minister hoisted the national flag, placed wreaths at the portraits of Bangabandhu and national four leaders and observed one-minute silence remembering the supreme sacrifice of the great sons of this soil.