“We will build houses for members of 30 martyrs’ families and widows. Construction work will begin soon,” Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque told newsmen in Dhaka yesterday.
During the Liberation War, Pakistani occupation forces and their local collaborators carried out a massacre that widowed many in the small village.
That is why the place came to be known as the ‘village of widows’. The minister said the government will rehabilitate and honour the families of those who were killed by the Pakistani occupation forces during the Liberation War in 1971.
He said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman provided financial assistance to these families after the Liberation War.
Bangabandhu’s daughter Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has given directives to rehabilitate all people in the ‘village of widows’ in different phases, he added.
Mozammel Haque said the government has been building 2,971 houses across the country for landless and insolvent freedom fighters under a project to raise the standard of living of the valiant sons of the soil.
“Of the houses, war heroines will get 71 houses. As part of this initiative, 30 houses will be built at the Sohagpur village of widows,” he added.
At present the village has 185 war heroines while process is underway to give recognition of war heroines to 15 others.
Mozammel Haque said the widows of Sohagpur village who are yet to get certificates for war heroines, can apply.