AUG 15, 1975 the Daily Ittefaq failed to make the headline on the following day

It was the same for the other media.

Ittefaq, the best-selling Bangla newspaper of the day, prioritised the army takeover over the killings in its Aug 16 edition.

Its six-column lead headline screamed: “Miltary takes power under Khandakar Mushtaq’s leadership”.

And the lead read, “The Bangladesh armed forces led by President Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed took over the power in greater interests by toppling former President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman yesterday morning.””During the takeover, former President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed in his home,” it went on.

Next to the lead, there was a two-column editorial headlined “Historic New Journey”.

Nurul Islam Patwary was editor of the newspaper at the time. Asafuddowla Reza was the news editor.

Daily Ittefaq, edited by Tofazzal Hossain Manik Mia, was known to be a mouthpiece of the Awami League before independence.The other headlines on the first page of that day’s edition of the newspaper included “Vice president, 10 ministers and 6 state ministers take oath”, “Return of up to Tk 8,000 of invalid currency”, “Takeover in the greater interest of nation”, “US to continue normal diplomatic operations”, “People heave a sigh of relief”, “Felicitations by several quarters”, “Status of foreign embassies to remain unaffected”, “BA Siddique becomes Red Cross Chairman” etc.