The demand for the inclusion of Bangla as an official language of Pakistan first surfaced in 1947, but the resistance was suppressed by different means, including baton charges on demonstrations and the arrest of organisers and activists, till 1952.
The student-led movement peaked in late January 1952 after the then-prime minister, Khawaja Nazimuddin, visited Dhaka and reiterated the government’s policy that Urdu would be the language of the state.ย
Following this, students enforced strikes and processions across Dhaka and declared a hartal or general strike, rally and processions for February 21. All political parties participating in the All-Party State Language Revolutionary Council (Sorbodolio Rastro Bhasha Sangram Parishad) supported the program.
This time, the government had stricter measures planned to suppress the movement. On February 21, students defied Section 144, issued the previous day for a month, banning rallies and processions. Police opened fire on them indiscriminately, killing half a dozen protesters in the medical barracks (hostel) and Fuller Road areas. More were killed on February 22 as the police and East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) sprayed bullets on condolence processions. On the other hand, the law enforcers arrested dozens, stole dead bodies from the hospital, and took away injured protesters from the streets in police vans.
Language movement: Not five, but dozens were killed on February 21-22
1971: Pakistanโs guilt will not go away
Erasing the nationโs father: An assault on the 1971 Liberation War
On the morning of February 23, the medical students planned the construction of a monument to commemorate the martyrs and completed the 10-foot structure by dawn; a plaque on it read, “Martyrs’ Monument.”
Two days after the students built the monument, a heavily-armed police team stormed the hostel and dismantled it
The students requested Mahbubur Rahman, the father of martyr Shafiur Rahman, for the inauguration. At the time, a staffer at the High Court, Shafiur, was shot while going to the office from his Laksmibazar house on his bicycle on February 22.ย
In the next few days, thousands of people visited the Shaheed Minar to place floral wreaths and pay respect to the sacrifice of the martyrs. The monument gave them the strength to come together and speed up the movement.
How they built it overnight
In the morning on February 23, the movement leaders were discussing their next course of action while sitting in front of their barracks with the police and military enforcing a curfew on the streets.
RESET BUTTON: Yunus is replacing 1971 memorials with July monuments
Dr. Shamsuzzoha: The professor who stood between bullets and his students
How Yunus is distorting history and undermining democratic process
DMC Central Students Union General Secretary Sharfuddin Ahmed recalled: Someone among the students proposed making a monument; vice president Golam Mawla supported it and soon artist Badrul Alam was called in and briefed about the plan. Sayeed Haider joined Badrul to finish the design of the memorial, Language Movement veteran and writer Ahmed Rafiq has written.ย
Everyone present at the hostel joined the construction work that night with much enthusiasm; even the peons and support staff lent a hand. Bricks and sand were aplenty on the college premises kept for construction work, while contractor Piaru Sarder donated cement from his warehouse immediately.ย
They formed a long human chain to carry the materials to the hostel through a pocket gate. Stretchers were used to carry the sand and cement. A mason was managed somehow, but no one remembers his name.ย
It was erected to the east of barrack number 12 of the hostel, close to the room of the martyr Aleem Chowdhury and the gate on the Fuller Road side. Now the spot falls under the hospital’s outdoor dispensary building. After it was built, the monument lay covered by a piece of cloth till morning.
Dismantled in two and a half days
Around 11:30am on February 26, the memorial was inaugurated officially by the Daily Azad editor, Abul Kalam Shamsuddin. The program was organised as the Muslim League leader had resigned from the Legislative Assembly in protest against the police action, medical student Ahmed Rafiq recalled in his writings.
In the afternoon, a heavily armed police team barricaded the hostel; some of the policemen entered the premises with tools to destroy the monument. While leaving the place, they took away the pieces of bricks and cement structure on their truck.ย
Police also detained a medical student named Nesar Uddin. Previously, they took away the loudspeakers from the hostel’s control room of the movement, where the medical students had launched a blood bank and from where they managed to take the injured to the hospital.
In the next few days, many monuments were built elsewhere, especially at educational institutions across the country. But no steps were taken to rebuild the Shaheed Minar of the medical barracks until 1956.
English 
Bengali