Shaheed Asad Day today.

The stage is set to commemorate the supreme sacrifice of martyred student leader Asaduzzaman Asad on the occasion of his 51st martyrdom anniversary today. On January 20, 1969, Asad, the hero of the 1969 mass upsurge, was shot dead by the Pakistani police at a protest against the atrocities on the people of East Pakistan at a rally held near Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). The death of Asad, the then a master's student of Dhaka University (DU), took the mass movement to the highest peak which expedited the fall of the then military dictator, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, over a decade of his iron rule, report agencies. President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued separate messages paying tributes to the memory of Shaheed Asad on the occasion. Recalling his contribution which had spearheaded the mass movement in 1969 with due respect, both the heads of state and of government prayed for eternal peace of the departed soul of Shaheed Asad. In his message, President M Abdul Hamid said, "The sacrifice of Asad in the 1969 mass upsurge had added a new dimension to the aspiration of Bengalis emancipation. "With the demand for independence and own state, the country's people irrespective of class and profession took to the streets braving the fear of imprisonment and the movement that turned into a mass upsurge gradually." He said after Asad's killing, Bangladesh emerged as an independent country through the War of Liberation at the call of Father of the Nation...