President to inaugurate 'Mother Language Festival'

Agartala (IANS): President Pranab Mukherjee will inaugurate the 'Mother Language Festival' in New Delhi on May 19 to commemorate the 11 language martyrs killed in police firing in Assam in 1961, an official said here on Saturday. On May 19, 1961, eleven youths, including a women, had become martyrs in a police firing at Silchar railway station in southern Assam when they took part in the language movement demanding recognition of Bengali as their mother tongue and an official language in Assam. Subsequently, in 1972, 1986 and in 1996, four more people were shot dead in Silchar when police opened fire on the people of the movement. Poet and former Tripura minister Anil Sarkar, now the vice-chairman of the Tripura planning board, has urged the President to take appropriate steps to celebrate the International Mother Language Day on February 21 across the country through the Sahitya Akademi, an autonomous organisation promoting literary activities in the country. February 21 was first declared a special day for celebrating linguistic and cultural diversity by Unesco in 1999. On February 21 each year, Bangladesh remembers the students who were killed when they demanded introduction of Bangla as state language while the country was still part of Pakistan in 1952. The International Mother Language Day had also been celebrated every year on February 21 in various parts of the country, specially in West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura.