As previous years, to recall the sacrifice of 11 martyrs on May 19 in 1961, this year also, a number of programmes have been lined up to be organised in the Barak Valley.
May 19 will be observed as ‘Unishe May’ all over the Barak Valley including Silchar.
The central theme of the series of the programmes has been named as ‘Hridaye Rabindranath, Chetanay Unish’. The programme will start on May 6 and continue till May 27.
On Sunday, the event will be started at the Goldighi Mall in Silchar town where a seminar titled ‘Robindranathke ghire jouboner adda’ will be organised. The seminar will start at 5 pm.
On May 7, a cultural programme will be held in the District Library auditorium at Silchar. On May 8, a drama will be presented by the students of various institutions. From May 9 to May 15, various cultural events will be held across the town.
On May 17, a grand walking – Unisher Pothchola – will be taken out throughout the main roads of Silchar town.
Alpona (Rongoli) will be drawn on the road in front of the Gandhi Baag by several artistes on May 18. On May 19 morning, a huge rally (Provaat Ferry) will be taken out. After that eleven martyrs of Barak will be garlanded by the masses in the Smashan Ghat.
On May 19, cultural programmes scheduled to be held at Gandhi Bhawan will be dedicated to great poets Kazi Nazrul and Sukanta Bhattacharjee.
The organiser, Sanmilito Sanskritik Moncha has appealed to all people irrespective of cast, creed, language and religion to make the mega event a success.
This may be noted that on May 19, 1961, a total of 11 youths sacrificed their lives in front of the bullets of police.
They were killed during a peaceful agitation organised in the Silchar Railway Station for their mother tongue Bengali. From then, they are popularly known as ‘Ekadash Shahid’ or the ‘Eleven Martyrs of Barak’.