Although 48 years of independence have passed, the mass grave of 52 martyrs commemorating the memory of Liberation War in Ataikula village of Naogaon's Raninagar is left carelessly.
Although 5 long years have passed, the instructions given by the Prime Minister to preserve the mass grave, have not been implemented yet.
The massacre site is somehow surrounded by a brick wall on the initiative of the family members of the martyrs. Shaheen Monowara Haque, a former Member of Parliament, completed the task of inscribing the names of the martyrs on a plaque in 1996 on her own initiative. After that there was no more work done there.
Pradyut Chandra Pal, Sadhan Chandra Pal and Nikhil Chandra Pal of Ataikula village, who survived the massacre in 1971, said that a group of Pakistani invading forces crossed the small Jamuna river at 10 am on April 25, 1971. Suspecting that the freedom fighters were in the village, they first surrounded the village, took cash and gold ornaments from each house and took them to the backyard of Balaram Chandra's house in the village. There the men were lined up in the yard and the women are kept in a room next to the yard.
One after another brutal torture was inflicted on women while men were shot with brushfire. Within moments, 52 people of that village were martyred. Later, they looted and set fire to various houses and left, they added.
Gautam Pal, son of martyr Govinda Charan Pal, said that after many efforts, the Prime Minister's Office in 2015 directed to preserve the mass grave to commemorate the memory of those 52 martyrs, to include their names in the official gazette, allocate funds for construction of memorials and provide assessment and financial assistance to the martyr's helpless families. However, due to the problem of land acquisition, authorities have not taken any steps to preserve the massacre site to build a memorial there so far, he added.
Upazila Nirbahi Officer Al Mamun said work is underway to implement the directives of the Prime Minister. The Public Works Department has been given instructions for land acquisition. Hopefully, the work of conservation of the massacre site and construction of the memorial will start soon.
