Death anniv of Nurjahan Murshid today

Bangladesh is marking the 23rd death anniversary of Nurjahan Murshid, a women’s rights activist, politician and one of the organisers of the 1971 Liberation War.

Wreaths will be placed at her grave at Mirpur Intellectuals’ Graveyard in Dhaka at about 4 p.m. Food will also be distributed among disadvantaged people.

Murshid won a seat on the Provincial Council in 1954 as a Juktofront candidate. She later played an active role in the six-point movement in 1966 and the mass movement of 1968-69. She won the 1970 election as an Awami League candidate.

After Bangladesh became independent, Murshid served as state minister for health and social welfare in 1972. She died in Dhaka on September 1, 2003. She was also among the relatively small number of Muslim women of her time to pursue higher education, earning a master’s degree in history from Calcutta University in the mid-1940s.