Bhasha Shaheed Divas
(Language Martyrs Day)

The Bengali Language Movement in Barak Valley, Assam was a protest against the decision of the Government of Assam to make Assamese the only official language of the state even though a significant proportion of the population were Bengali speaking. In the Barak Valley, the Bengali speaking population constituted a majority. The main incident, in which 11 people were killed by State police, took place on 19 May 1961.

Since then the 19th of May is remembered as the Bengali Language Martyr day in Barak Valley and other parts in India.

This massacre is compared with the massacre in Jalianwalabag or the one in Bangladesh on 21 February 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bengali, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, which is the capital of present day Bangladesh.

Eleven persons were martyred in 1961. Nine persons died on 19 May 1961, two died later.

Kanailal Niyogi
Chandicharan Sutradhar
Hitesh Biswas
Satyendra Deb
Kumud Ranjan Das
Sunil Sarkar
Tarani Debnath
Sachindra Chandra Pal
Birendra Sutradhar
Sukamal Purakayastha
Kamala Bhattacharya

One person was martyred on 17 August 1972.

Bijan Chakraborty

Two more persons were martyred on 21 July 1986.

Jaganmay Deb
Dibyendu Das
A martyr's tomb, known as the Shahid Bedi was erected in HAILAKANDI in the memory of the martyrs.