Bangladesh ex-PM Sheikh Hasina’s palace to be converted into revolution museum

The once luxurious palace of Bangladesh’s autocratic ex-leader Sheikh Hasina will become a museum to honour the revolution that ousted her, the leader of the caretaker government said Monday.

“The museum should preserve memories of her misrule and the people’s anger when they removed her from power,” Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus said as he toured the battered Ganabhaban palace, the former official residence of the prime minister.

The 84-year-old microfinance pioneer was appointed the country’s “chief advisor” after the student-led uprising that forced Hasina to flee by helicopter to India on August 5. Hasina’s 15-year rule saw widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of her political opponents, and a Bangladeshi court this month issued an arrest warrant for her arrest.

More than 700 people were killed, many in a brutal police crackdown, before Hasina’s fall. As she fled, thousands stormed her former residence, which the government said was a “symbol of repression”. The walls of the palace, looted and damaged in the chaos after Hasina escaped, are daubed with graffiti condemning her fallen regime.

The museum will include a replica of the notorious “House of Mirrors” Aynaghar detention centre operated by Hasina’s regime — given its name because its detainees were never supposed to see any other person besides themselves. “The Aynaghar should remind visitors of the torture endured by secret prisoners,” Yunus said.

Hasina’s overthrow resulted in at least two days of chaos, which included the looting of a museum at the home of her father, Bangladesh’s first president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Apurba Jahangir, a press official in the office of Yunus, said construction would start by December.

“The museum construction hasn’t begun yet, but it will start soon,” Apurba told AFP. Hasina has not been seen in public since fleeing Bangladesh. The 77-year-old’s last official whereabouts was a military airbase near India’s capital New Delhi.