Bangladesh's Awami League-led alliance government on Monday decided to rename the country's main international airport, an official said. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed's cabinet decided to change the name of Zia International Airport to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told a press briefing after Monday's weekly meeting.
The airport in Dhaka began operation in 1980. In 1983, it was named after the country's former president Ziaur Rahman, a military chief turned politician and founder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), assassinated two years earlier in an attempted coup.
At Monday's meeting the cabinet also decided to rename 50 other key establishments currently bearing names bestowed by the BNP-led alliance government of Khaleda Zia between 2001 and 2006. Azad said the Bangladesh High Court had in an earlier judgement decreed that no major establishment should be named after a military dictator.