The Intercontinental hotel came under attack by the Crack Platoon of Sector-2 two times in 1971 and “Intercontinental hit and run’ was the first guerrilla operation successfully conducted by the valiant Freedom Fighters, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said.
“From that operation the whole world came to know about the fierce resistance of Bangalees against the Pakistani occupation forces,” she recalled a glimpse of the events while inaugurating the renovated InterContinental Dhaka hotel on Thursday (Sept 13).
The prime minister said the InterContinental carries many memories and evidences of Bangladesh’s glorious history and heritage. Many important political events at the time of the War of Liberation were held in this hotel.
She said most of the foreign journalists were staying in the hotel when Pakistan occupation force started their crackdown on Bengalee people on March 25 in 1971.
The government kept all journalists under lock and key in the hotel to keep their atrocities in dark, she added.
But Simon Dring was the first man who fled the confinement with the help of hotel staffs and disseminated the news and photograph of the brutality of the Pakistanis, the prime minister said.
The prime minister said the 60-years old hotel has been renovated keeping its structure of the main building intact but adding the taste of local culture, heritage and Mughal architecture. The renovation was very crucial to sustain the competition, she added.
The prime minister said the officials and employees of the hotel were given training abroad to make them befitting to international standard. The guests of the hotel would get Intercontinental services which they get across the world, she said.
The Intercontinental Hotel Dhaka, formerly known as Ruposhi Bangla and Sheraton, has been inaugurated after four years of renovation work. However, commercial operation of the hotel will begin in November next after completing training to its staffs.
The renovation work of the hotel began in 2014 following British global hotel chain InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) and Bangladesh Services Ltd (BSL) signed an agreement to manage the property for 30 years. Now the hotel is getting back its previous InterContinental name.
The 226 room hotel with minimum size of 40 square metres each has 201 premium or deluxe rooms, 10 deluxe suites, five superior suites, five diplomatic suites and five presidential suites.