Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader on Wednesday said the defeated forces of 1971 are now active again to retaliate.

"The defeated forces of 1971 now want to take revenge and that's why they have become active now," he said while talking to reporters after paying tributes to the martyred intellectuals on the occasion of Martyred Intellectuals Day.

Quader, General Secretary of the ruling Awami League, also urged the pro-liberation forces to resist all conspiracies by getting united.

Earlier on Wednesday, President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina paid tributes to the martyred intellectuals.

Flanked by the party's central leaders, Hasina, also the President of Bangladesh Awami League, laid another wreath at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial as the party chief.

Awami League presidium members Begum Matia Chowdhury, Abdur Razzaque, Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Abdur Rahman, Shahjahan Khan, joint secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif MP, AFM Bahauddin Nasim and organising secretary Ahmed Hossain, among others, were present there.

On the night of December 14, 1971, over 200 intellectuals including educationists, journalists, litterateurs, writers, physicians, scientists, lawyers, artists, philosophers and political thinkers had been picked up in Dhaka by the Pakistani occupation forces, aided by their local collaborators.

The intellectuals were taken blindfold to torture cells in Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Nakhalpara, Rajarbagh and other locations in different parts of the city and later executed en masse at different killing grounds, most notably Rayerbazar and Mirpur.

Since then, the day has been observed as the Martyred Intellectuals Day.