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Dhaka: The Bangladesh High Court on Sunday ruled as illegal the cancellation of a public holiday to mark the death of the country's founding leader Shaikh Mujibur Rahman was illegal.
The August 15 annual holiday was scrapped six years ago by the government of former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, after she won a 2001 election by defeating Mujib's daughter Shaikh Hasina, another former prime minister.
Mujib was killed with most members of his family in a military coup on August 15, 1975, beginning years of rule by army generals, including Khaleda's husband Ziaur Rahman, himself killed in a 1981 mutiny.
Hasina introduced August 15 as public holiday to mourn her father after she won power in a 1996 election, but her rival Khaleda scrapped it in 2002, despite protests by Hasina's Awami League.
The court issued the ruling after a petition by a supporter of Mujib who, as chief of the Awami League, launched the independence campaign for East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in the early 1960s.
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