Tripura Central University on Thursday conferred honorary D. Litt on Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on its 9th convocation when a high-level of emotion with the recalling of good old days of the neighbouring country’s Liberation War in 1971 overwhelmed the entire proceedings.
Vice-president Hamid Ansari, who was the chief guest on the occasion, handed over the honour to her. Delivering her speech after receiving the D. Litt, Ms Hasina repeatedly deviated from her written speech and recalled the cooperation the government of India extended to the suffering people of her country during the war and after her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the then-President of Bangladesh, along with 18 of her family members and close relatives were assassinated in 1975.
Talking about the contributions of Tripura, where 15 lakh refugees took shelter and where many camps of Muktibahani were set up and the famous Agartala conspiracy case, being considered as the first major step for the beginning of the freedom struggle, she said “visiting Tripura is a pilgrimage for me”.
She stressed on the need for increasing cooperation between the two neighbours in the field of education, which was reciprocated by HRD minister Kapil Sibal. He assured to consider increasing the number of scholarship being offered to Bangladeshi students, which is at present 100 annually. He also promised to make the South Asian University, being set up at Delhi, a centre of excellence.
The Prime Minister was accorded a civic reception where over 30,000 people turned up. Assuring all sorts of cooperation for development of Tripura she said her country has already consented for setting up of four border haats along Tripura border.