Abdur Razzak given teary farewell

People bade Abdur Razzak a teary farewell as the frontline organiser of the Liberation War was laid to rest at Banani Graveyard with state honour on Monday afternoon.

A smartly turned out contingent of the police gave a state honour as bugles played the Last Post before the body was lowered into the grave at the banana Graveyard. Mourners observed a minute’s silence and offered at the graveside.

Senior Awami League leaders handed over Razzak’s body to his two sons, Nahin and Fahim Razzak, who joined the burial rites, as mourners burst into tears.

Among others, AL leaders Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed, Abdul Jalil, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, Obaidul Quader, Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Mahbubul

Alam Hanif, BM Mozameel Haque, AFM Bahauddin Nasim, Abul Kalam Azad and Hasan Mahmud were present. A group of freedom fighters also paid their last respect to Razzak.

The cabinet at its weekly meeting on the day adopted a condolence motion on the death of Abdur Razzak, also Awami League advisory council member and a former minister.

The meeting recalled the contributions of the veteran leader to all democratic movements beginning from the education movement in 1962, said the prime minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad.

Abdur Razzak, whose illustrious political career spanned half a century, died in King’s College Hospital in London on Friday after protracted illness.

Earlier, the fifth and last namaz-e-janaza of Abdur Razzak was held at the graveyard around 3:40pm.

The body was flown to Razzak’s ancestral village at Shariatpur’s Damudda in the morning and brought to Banani Graveyard from there at about 3:30pm.

People from walks of life, including politicians, lawmakers, lawyers, socio-cultural activists and students gathered at Razzak’s ancestral home in Damudda and on the upazila parishad premises where the body was kept for public view, to pay homage to the late leader, who was lawmaker elected from Shariatpur-3 constituency.

Razzak’s fourth namaz-e janaza was hold at the Damudda upazila mosque after Johr prayers. Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed, Mahbubul Alam Hanif, Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Hemayetullah Auranga and Shariatpur district president Jamal Sharif attended the janaza.

Razzak’s first namaz-e-janaza was held in London on Saturday. His body was flown to Dhaka by a special Biman on Sunday. His second and third namaz-e-janaza were held at South Plaza of Jatiya Sangsad and Jatiya Eidgah ground with thousands of mourners attending.

The AL leader’s body was also kept at his Gulshan house, Central Shaheed Minar premises and AL headquarters on Bangabandhu Avenue, for public view on Sunday.

President Zillur Rahman, prime minister Sheikh Hasina and people from all walks of life paid tributes to the late leader by placing wreaths at the coffin.

AL leaders and activists wore black badges and the party flag flew at half-mast atop party offices across the country on Monday – the last day of a two-day mourning programme.

Razzak, a political luminary and popular leader, never lost a general election in his career.

He was also the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on water resources ministry. He was water resources minister in 1996-2001.

Razzak, was one the three members of the core committee of the Swadhin Bangla Biplabi Parishad, widely known as ‘nucleus’, a radical group of the Chhatra League that in early 1960s had conceived the idea of an independent nation state and started work for its establishment.

Razzak was also in the forefront of all landmark movements in the turbulent 1960s, including the historic six-point movement, the 11-point movement and the movement against the Agartala Conspiracy Case that climaxed in the 1969 popular uprising and culminated in the independence of Bangladesh in 1971.

He was the organising secretary, general secretary and presidium member of the Awami League during his illustrious political career. He was also general secretary of BKSAL, formed by the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975.

Abdur Razzak fought relentlessly against communal and reactionary forces throughout his political career. He was also a leader of the movement against autocrat Ershad in 1980s.

Record pass in Primary Terminal Examination

About 97.26 per cent of the examinees passed the primary terminal examination this year, according to the results published on Monday. The pass rate in Ebtedayi terminal examination was 91.28 per cent.

Officials said the pass rate of primary and Ebtedayi terminal examinations this year increased than the figure of the previous year.

Last year, the pass rate was 92.34 per cent in primary terminal examination and 83.93 per cent in Ebtedayi terminal examination. The pass rate was 88.84 pee cent in the maiden primary terminal examination in 2009. The examinations were held from November 23 to 30.

Male students did well this year than the female students in terms of pass rate. The pass rate for male students was 97.48 per cent and for female 97.08 per cent in primary terminal examination and 92.51 per cent for male and 90.23 per cent for female in Ebtedayi.

This year for the first time, the results were published according to the grade system.

Of the successful candidates in primary terminal examination, 105,673 got GPA 5 while 2,150 students got GPA 5 in Ebtedayi terminal examination.

In primary terminal examination, the highest GPA 5 achiever was from Dhaka division and the lowest achiever was from Sylhet division. Some 41,731 students got GPA 5 in Dhaka and 3,291 got GPA 5 in Sylhet.

A total of 26,42,155 students took the examination this year in 6,176 examination centres.

Primary and mass education minister Afsarul Ameen and other officials of the ministry handed over the results to prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday morning.

The results were later available on website at dpe.teletalk.com.bd and at the districts and upazila education offices. Students and their guardians also collected the results through short message service from mobile phone operators. The examination is considered to be the biggest public examination in the country.

Some 4,287 physically challenged students sat for primary terminal examination and the pass rate was 96.64 per cent while in Ebtedayi 418 physically challenged students took the examination with the pass rate being 94.98 per cent.

Among seven divisions, students of Barisal division did well in primary and their pass rate was 99.05 per cent. In primary, the pass rate in Rajshahi was 97.63 per cent, in Khulna 98.13 per cent, in Dhaka 98.08 per cent, in Chittagong 97.24 per cent, in Sylhet 90.59 per cent and in Rangpur 96.85 per cent.

Students of Barisal division also did well in Ebtedayi terminal examination. The pass rate was 94.65 per cent.

Among the different types of educational institutions, students of PTI schools did well and the pass rate was 99.88 per cent. The pass rate in BRAC-run school was 99.73 per cent, in model government primary schools was 98.63 per cent, in High school adjacent primary schools 98.17 per cent, in kindergarten schools 98 per cent, in government primary schools 97.89 per cent, in registered non-government primary schools 95.95 per cent, community primary schools 94.78 per cent, in non-registered primary schools 93.74 per cent, Shishu Kalyan schools 92.69 per cent and NGO-run schools 91.45 per cent. The lowest pass rate was in Ananda school at 73.37 per cent.

In primary terminal examination, the top three educational institutions were Monipur High School in Dhaka, Viqarunnisa Noon School and College in Dhaka and Motijheel Ideal School and College in Dhaka.

In Ebtedayi, the top three madrassas were Darusjannat Siddiqiya Kamil Madrassa in Dhaka, Baitus Sharaf Kamil Madrassa in Chittagong and Tanjimul Ummah Cadet Madrassa in Dhaka.

No students of 371 schools and 99 madrassas who took the examinations became successful whereas in 68,629 schools and in 6074 madrassas, 100 per cent students passed the examinations.

The government introduced the public examinations for Class V students in 2009. Only students of general schools sat for the exam that year. From 2010 the Ebtedayi madrasa students are also taking the examination.

The examinations were held in Bangla, English, maths, religious studies, science and social science with a total of 600 marks.

The students must pass the terminal exams to get enrolled in Class VI. Scholarships would be awarded on the basis of their results in primary terminal examinations.