Bangladesh plans to turn Sheikh Hasina’s old palace into a revolution museum

The museum will include a replica of the ‘House of Mirrors’ detention centre where the ex-leader’s regime tortured secret prisoners

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Anti-government protesters gather at Sheikh Hasina’s palace in Dhaka on August 5, the day Bangladesh’s former prime minister resigned and fled the country. Photo: Zuma Press Wire/dpa

Published: 12:31pm, 29 Oct 2024Updated: 12:33pm, 29 Oct 2024

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

“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 on Monday 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 adviser” 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.

An aerial view shows anti-government protesters storming Ganabhaban palace on August 5. Photo: AFP

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”.