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People from all walks of life have come to the Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka to pay their final respects to Shib Narayan Das, the freedom fighter, politician, and one of the designers of the first flag of Bangladesh.
The coffin bearing Das’s body was brought to the Shaheed Minar at 10:30am on Saturday. He was given a guard of honour from the district administration as part of his state honours, reports bdnews24.com.
Representatives from many organisations, institutions, and the cultural arena at the invitation of the Sammilito Sankskritik Jote paid their respects with flowers.
The 78-year-old Das passed away at the ICU at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital around 9:25am on Friday.
His family says Das donated his body to BSMMU and his eyes to the blood and organ donor organisation Sandhani.
After the tributes at the Shaheed Minar, Das’s body will be taken to his ancestral home in Cumilla. There, after another ceremony where all can pay their respects, it will be handed over to the hospital.
A delegation from the Awami League, including Presidium member Abdur Razzak, came to pay their respects with flowers.
Following the tribute, Razzak said they were deeply saddened by the death of Das. He praised him for his role as a member of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, for his part in many political movements across the country, his role in the Liberation War and for his efforts to maintain its spirit and ideals.
“He contributed to the design of our national flag. It will be written down in history. As a nation, we owe him our respect.”
Dhaka University Acting Vice Chancellor Prof Muhammad Samad led a delegation from the university as they paid their respects to Das.
Amid the long freedom struggle for a Bengali state, Das was one of the Chhatra League leaders who took on the task of making a flag for a new state, Prof Samad said.
Das was once a leader in the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal. JaSaD General Secretary Shirin Akhter described Das as a great freedom fighter.
“He sacrificed everything for his country. Even in his final days, he donates his body and his eyes for the country,” she said.
Arnob Aditya Das described his father as someone who never compromised with injustice, corruption and lies. He said he had always stood fast to the ideals of an independent Bangladesh, the ideals of the Liberation War, and non-sectarian politics.
“My father would always say that we should speak out on behalf of all the oppressed and downtrodden people of the country,” he said.
Representatives from the Bangladesh Communist Party, Workers Party, JSD, and many other political, social, and cultural organisations came to pay their respects to Das.
Das was one of the Chhatra League leaders who designed the iconic red and green flag with a yellow image of the Bangladesh map at its centre at a Dhaka University residential hall in 1970.
The flag was an integral part of Bangladesh’s struggle for independence and was flown for the first time at the Kala Bhaban at Dhaka University on Mar 2, 1971.
In 1972, after Bangladesh gained its independence, the government tasked artist Quamrul Hassan to re-design the flag. Hassan’s design removed the yellow map and finalised the green and red design as Bangladesh’s national flag.