A scene from Tringsha Shatabdi. — Snigdha Zaman

Six-day theatre festival organised by theatre troupe Swapnadal ended on Monday through an array of programmes at the experimental theatre hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.
The concluding day programme was jointly organised by Shilpakala Academy to mark the Hiroshima-Nagasaki day.
An anti-war discussion session was held where director general of the academy Liaquat Ali Lucky, Japanese ambassador to Bangladesh Shiro Sadoshima, vice chancellor of Jahangirnagan University Dr Mohammad Anwar Hossain, chief of Swapnadal Zahid Repon, among others delivered speeches.
Requesting the audience to imagine the devastation of Hiroshima bomb attack, Shiro Sadoshima, said, ‘140 thousand people died directly after the attack only in Hiroshima while another 270 thousand people died in the next few years following as the consequences of the tragedy.the impact of the nuclear attack. In Nagasaki 70 thousand people died immediately while more 150 thousand died after the attack.’
The Japanese ambassador also urged for stopping making of nuclear bombs.
Dr Mohammad Anwar Hossain became nostalgic when he recalled his visit to Hiroshima Museum in Japan. Liaquat Ali Lucky also expressed his sympathy to the victims of the mass killing.
Following the discussion child artistes of People’s Theatre Association presented music and dance. They also presented a Japanese song.
As part of the festival, an exhibition was organised in which photographs and posters depicting the destruction of the nuclear bomb attacks on Japanese cities in Hiroshima, on August 6, and in Nagasaki on August 9 in 1945 were on display. 
One thousand paper made cranes, crafted by the local children in memory of the Japanese children who died in the tragedies, were distributed.
In the evening play Tringsha Shatabdi, written and directed respectively by Badal Sircer and Zahid Repon, was staged at the Experimental Theatre Hall.
Swapnadal artistes presented the pathetic consequences of the atomic blast in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in their performances. However, other genocides held across the world including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Palestine and Iraq were also addressed in the play.
Swapnadal organised the festival marking the troupe’s 12 years of theatre practice. The festival features plays by Rabindranath Tagore, Selim Al-Deen and Badal Sircer as the troupe also celebrates Tagore’s 71st death anniversary, which falls on August 6; Selim Al Deen’s 63rd birth anniversary, which falls on August 18, and Badal Sircar’s 87th birth anniversary, which was celebrated on July 15.