DHAKA: President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina paid their deep homage to the martyrs of the historic language movement by placing wreaths at the Central Shaheed Minar in city at one minute past midnight tonight.

In the first hour of the day, President Abdul Hamid paid homage to language movement martyrs placing floral wreaths at the central Shaheed Minar in the capital a minute after midnight past Friday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, also ruling Awami League president, placed wreaths along with her cabinet and party colleagues immediately after the President.

Moreover, Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal of India also paid homage by placing floral wreaths to the language martyrs there.

Earlier on Thursday night, Mamata Banerjee arrived here in Bangladesh on a three-day official visit at the invitation of foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali on the occasion of ‘Bhasha Divas’ falls on February 21.

They stood there in silence for a minute in honor of the language heroes.

Amar Ekushey and the International Mother Language Day is being observed from the first minute of Saturday with paying tribute to the language movement martyrs who fought and died on February 21 in 1952 to make mother tongue Bangla a state language.

The whole country is observing the 63rd Martyrs’ Day to commemorate the Language Movement martyrs through various programs.

The Central Shaheed Minar and its adjacent areas on Dhaka University campus got a different look with street paintings and hanging Bangla alphabets from branches of trees and pasting on walls.

February 21, the day has also been observed simultaneously as International Mother Language Day since 2000 after UNESCO announced the decision in November 1999.

People from all walks of life also reached there barefooted and placed wreaths at the Shaheed Minar singing the chorus ‘Amar Bhaiyer Rakte Rangano Ekushey February, Ami ki Bhulite Pari’, stand in solemn silence for a while.

On this day in 1952, students and people from all strata of society took to the streets in Dhaka to protest the then Pakistan government’s refusal to recognize Bangla as one of the state languages and its attempt to impose Urdu as the only official language of Pakistan.

Salam, Barkat, Rafiq, Shafiur, Jabbar and a few other brave sons of the soil sacrificed their lives to establish Bangla as a state language of the then Pakistan.

The day is a public holiday. The national flag will fly at half-mast at all government, autonomous and private buildings.

Different socio-political and cultural organizations have chalked out various programs, including seminars and cultural functions, to observe the Amar (immortal) Ekushey and International Mother Language Day in a befitting manner.

The different newspapers publish special supplements marking the day and radio and television channels air special programs on the occasion.

BDST: 0013 HRS, FEB 21, 2015