DINAJPUR — A mourning banner now hangs at the main gate of Dinajpur Government Girls’ High School, the institution where former prime minister Khaleda Zia spent her childhood, walked to class each day in her school uniform with books in hand and built early friendships.
The banner reads: “The Dinajpur Government Girls’ High School family is deeply saddened by the death of Begum Khaleda Zia, our distinguished former student, three-time former prime minister and uncompromising national leader.”
Nazma Yasmin, the school’s current headmistress, said Khaleda Zia enrolled in the fourth grade at Dinajpur Government Girls’ School in 1954. She passed her matriculation examination from the school in 1960 and went on to enroll at Dinajpur Government College, formerly known as Surendranath College, Yasmin said.
Expressing deep sorrow at her death, Yasmin said Khaleda Zia was a source of pride. “We say with pride that this great woman studied at this school,” she said. “She became the country’s first woman prime minister. She served as prime minister three times. She was not only the pride of this school but of the entire country. The country has lost a guardian. Begum Khaleda Zia was greatly needed by the country at this time.”
Yasmin said she and all the school’s teachers and students were mourning. Nearly all of the teachers came to the school Wednesday despite the public holiday to pay their respects, she said.
Usharani Shil, 80, a childhood friend of Khaleda Zia and daughter of Surendranath Shil of Mission Road in Dinajpur city, said she and Zia studied together at Dinajpur Government Girls’ High School from childhood. “Khaleda Zia was a kind-hearted person from her school days,” Shil said. “She had no arrogance. She spoke to everyone at school with a smile and was always cheerful.”
Begum Khaleda Zia was the most beautiful schoolgirl at Dinajpur Government Girls’ High School at the time, Shil said.
Mourning banners and black flags were displayed not only at Dinajpur Government Girls’ High School but also at every educational institution, government, private and autonomous offices, and shops across Dinajpur city to mark Zia’s death. The mourning was sincere, not merely symbolic, residents said. Most shops in Dinajpur city remained closed until afternoon Wednesday.
On the second day after the death of the BNP chairperson, Quran recitations continued Wednesday at the district BNP office on Jail Road in Dinajpur city and at Tayyaba Villa, the ancestral home of Begum Khaleda Zia in the Balubari area, named after her mother, Tayyaba Majumdar.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report