Draft list of freedom fighters on 15 February: Minister
He said that he could not confirm how many heroic freedom fighters are in the draft list for now
The draft list of freedom fighters will be released on 15 February, says Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque.
"We will publish the draft list after verification and selection report received from upazila level. We are moving forward with the aim of publishing the draft list on 15 February," said the minister.
He said that he could not confirm how many heroic freedom fighters are in the draft list for now.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Earlier, the minister had said that the draft list would be released in the first week of February, reports Jagonews24.
The government has previously taken initiative to publish a complete list of freedom fighters.
The Liberation War Affairs Minister has already said that the final list will be released on 26 March, Independence Day.
Many names have been included in the civilian gazette as heroic freedom fighters without the recommendation of the council, which is a violation of Section 8 (i) of the National Freedom Fighters Council Act, 2002.
Among them, the names of 39,961 freedom fighters have been published on the website of the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs.
According to the Ministry of Liberation War, if the name of a freedom fighter is included in the Indian list or the Lal Muktibarta or 33 types of evidence recognised by the Ministry, he will be out of the scope of verification and selection.
If by mistake the name of any such freedom fighter is published in the verifying list on the website of the Ministry of Liberation War or National Freedom Fighter Council, the ministry requested to contact the office of the concerned Upazila Nirbahi Officer / Deputy Commissioner's Office at 10 am on 30 January with suitable evidence to remove the name from the list.
On 18 January, the Liberation War Minister told reporters, the work of enrolling 140,000 freedom fighters online has been completed.
"The gazette of 34,000 freedom fighters will be scrutinised in the upazila on 30 January to regularize them. We are waiting, maybe the number of freedom fighters will be limited to 160, 000," he added.
The minister also said, "There are some pending cases, there are allegations against many, and many applications have not been finalised."
"In my opinion, the number of ordinary freedom fighters will not go above 1, 75,000 under any circumstances."
Besides, there will be about 15,000 more martyrs, war wounded, awardees, Birangona freedom fighters, said Mozammel.
"Hopefully the number of freedom fighters from all categories will be below 2 lakh, which is already much higher."
