Dhaka: The Amar Ekushey Book Fair saw the largest crowd as well as sale on Sunday, the International Mother Language Day and Martyrs’ Day.

The fair was crowded from the morning after it opened on Sunday at 8:00am.

To make the fair more attractive, the Bangla Academy organised a festival of the self-composed poetry recitation on the main stage from the 7:30am.

Around 130 poets recited their poems to the audience. Poet Asad Choudhury presided over the session.

Visitors were seen standing in long queues to enter the book fair being held on the Bangla Academy premises and in nearby Suhrawardy Udyan.

After paying tributes to the Language Movement martyrs at the Central Shaheed Minar, many thronged the book fair. People of all ages, including students, visited the fair.

The fair was very crowded in the morning although there was a decrease in rush at noon. However, the size of crowd started to increase as day rolled to dusk.

Publishers were also happy as they could sell huge books on the day.

A group of school students who entered the fair after paying tributes to the martyrs at the Central Shaheed Minar said they do not know much about the language movement.  

They said they came to the fair to buy books on the language movement and history of the heroic contribution of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for establishing Bangla as one of the state languages of erstwhile Pakistan.

Meanwhile, a total of 2,606 books have so far made their way into stalls, with 210 being launched on Sunday.

Amar Ekhushey Speech was delivered by Director General of the Bangla Academy Shamsuzzaman Khan in the afternoon.