City Desk :
Father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman dedicated the Joliot-Curie Peace Award to the country’s people, especially the liberation war martyrs and freedom fighters.
“The honour goes to those who laid down their lives for the cause of our freedom and those who valiantly fought the war . . . the Joliot Curie peace medal belongs to the entire Bengali nation; to the 75 million people of my country,” said Bangabandhu after receiving the prestigious award at the Asian Peace Conference with World Peace Council secretary general Romesh Chandra in the chair.
The award handing over event was the lead news of the country’s the then leading newspapers, including the daily Ittefaq, The Bangladesh Observer, the daily Banglar Bani, the Dainik Bangla, the daily Purbadesh and The Azadi, reports BSS.
While pining the gold medal on Bangabandhu’s chest, World Council of Peace Secretary General Ramesh Chandra described Bangabandhu as ‘a man of peace, a pioneer of peace, a man of independence and a man of the world.”
In his speech, Bangabandhu said, “We want an era of undisrupted peace in every corner of the globe. We want peace, we want it to consolidate.”
The newspapers highlighted Bangabandhu’s call for undisrupted peace, determination to be with the peace-loving people as well as his call to stop global arms race.
Urging the world super powers to bring an end to arms race, Bangabandhu said, “Many a nation, big or small, has now been entangled in this arms race. The military budget of such countries is getting and bigger”.
In his speech, according to newspapers, Bangabandhu also said, “The pious declaration of economic assistance to the developing nations had been rendered meaningless by the mad race for arms build-up”.
On May 24, 1973, the local news outlets published a number of stories and supplements on the grand occasion along with making the story lead in both front and back page.
The Bangladesh Observer made its first and second lead story titled ‘Mujib’s call for undisrupted peace: Arms race must stop’ and ‘Bangabandhu decorated with peace medal: Glory to martyrs’ while daily Ittefaq made its lead with Bangabandhu’s call to peace loving forces for unity along with some other stories including one titled ‘Peace medal awarded to Bangabandhu with huge cheers’.
The Dainik Bangla published a number of stories with titles ‘Bangabandhu decorated with Joliot Curie peace medal’, ‘the honor goes to 7.5 crore Bengali’, ‘Bangladesh an example of resistance against fascism’, ‘Bangabandhu the pioneer of peace: Ramesh Chandra’, and ‘The voices of peace gather in one estuary’.
‘This award for struggling Bengali people’, ‘Sheikh Mujib: a friend of the world’ and ‘Bangladesh the source of inspiration for straggling people’ were the headlines of the daily Purbadesh while Banglar Bani made headlines such as “We will be with peace-loving people forever: Bangabandhu’ and ‘The people of world is with Bangladesh, It’s not alone: Ramesh Chandra’.
The Azadi made their stories with the headlines ‘Stop the competition of Arms: Bangabandhu’, ‘Bangabandhu, the symbol of peace and Liberty, awarded peace medal’ and ‘Anti-fascism forces must be united for the sake of peace’.
