Decoration work is yet to start
The underground liberation war museum at Suhrawardy Udyan in the capital city is likely to be officially inaugurated on the upcoming Independence Day, March 26.
The museum will feature photographs, projection room and articles representing and reminiscing the period from 1948 to the Independence War of 1971.
The project officials, however, expressed uncertainty about the inauguration of the museum on the expected date as the decoration work was yet to start.
According to the Public Works Department sources, the museum was handed over to the liberation war ministry in 2007 after construction works which was a part of Swadhinata Stambha (independence monument) Project.
The museum has an entry room, a black-stone room dedicated to the memory of March 25, 1971, a room featuring display of light and water and a room which will give space for other museums to showcase their items on liberation war on a temporary basis, said the project’s sub-assistant engineer ABM Kawsar Hossain.
He told New Age that the museum has a 157-seat audio-visual auditorium where documentaries on liberation war will be screened, some glasses on the roof to let light into the museum during load-shedding and in the outside there are some closed-circuit television cameras, a plaza square with a little monument and artificial water body.
‘We have made arrangement for people with disabilities so that they can enter the museum easily. There is a lift and sloppy pathways inside and outside the museum,’ he said, adding that the police and Ansar members were maintaining security of the premises.
Asked why the decoration work was yet to begin, Kawsar Hossain said the liberation war affairs ministry was responsible for the decoration of the museum and the liberation war museum would also assist the ministry in the work.
‘It is their part of works, not ours,’ he said, adding, ‘we only constructed the structure.’
The project’s another sub-assistant engineer, Mohammad Bazlul Rahman, said the museum was already centrally air-conditioned and lights would be fixed at any time.
‘The decoration work is scheduled to be finished before March 26 but it is hardly possible to finish any work in time in Bangladesh, you know,’ he said.
They further said the visitors would require to buy tickets to enter the museum.
A high official of the project cell at the public works department, seeking anonymity, said a total of Tk 1 crore was estimated for the museum’s decoration.
He said at present there was nothing in the museum and it has remained empty since 2007.
‘It is already mid-January and we have only one and half month,’ he said, adding, ‘you see there are so many works yet to be done while the time is very short.’
The visitors, coming to Suhrawardy Udyan to spend hours sitting on benches near the artificial water-body and Shikha Chirantan, were totally unaware of the museum.
Jewel, a former student of Dhaka College who was sitting just outside the museum, said he used to visit this place but never heard of any museum there.
Dhaka University’s public administration department’s student Ahsan said he was also unaware of the museum.
‘There is no signboard or mark of a museum!’ he said, exclaiming, ‘It is very interesting that an underground museum is beneath my foot.’
The project’s officials, admitting to lack of publicity for the museum, said the journalists should come forward to make people know about this museum.
