AGARTALA: Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar proposed Bangladeshi filmmakers to shoot movies in the state taking the advantage of cultural, linguistical and social affinity between Tripura and Bangladesh.
Inaugurating a three-day long Bangladesh film festival – ‘Bangladesh War of Liberation in Celluloid’ here on Friday evening, Sarkar said Bangladesh High Commission in India had organised the second festival after Kolkata to commemorate the 40 years of Bangladesh liberation war and the contribution of Tripura in this regard.
He, however, pointed out that his government had been trying to further strengthen the relationship with Bangladesh in terms of economic, cultural and social exchange programmes, which had begun following the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in September last and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Tripura last month.
Recalling his visit to the house of Bangladesh’s father of the nation and father of Hasina Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman with Dr Singh, Mr Sarkar said, ‘I could not stand more than 10 minutes in the house because the buildings are still carrying the brutal days of Pakistani army, where the entire family except Sheikh Hasina and her younger sister were killed and I witnessed the baby cycle left in a corner, used by Mujibur’s youngest son Russell.’
He also said though India and Bangladesh were two sovereign nations, both the countries had borrowed their respective national anthems from world poet Rabindra Nath Tagore and asked Bangladeshi filmmakers to make films on Tagore’s work on Tripura.
Addressing the gathering Deputy High Commissioner of Bangladesh in New Delhi, Salem Mehabub Selah stated that all the six films on Bangladesh Liberation War would be screened here to pay gratitude to Tripura, which sheltered more than 16 lakh refugees of Bangladesh in 1971. (UNI)