The Ministry of Liberation War Affairs issued a gazette notification, saying the decision was taken at the 66th meeting of the National Freedom Fighters Council as per The National Freedom Fighter Council Act-2002.

The gazette was made available on the website of the BG Press.

According to the notification, the newly-included freedom fighters were selected in three phases through rigorous scrutiny.

They will be entitled to all facilities provided to freedom fighters by the state.

In last December, Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque said the actual number of freedom fighters is not more than 210,000. Then, 201,461 freedom fighters were said to get government allowances. 

According to available information, the number of listed freedom fighters is 333,856. Of them, 251,285 are claimed to be genuine freedom fighters, he said.

The ministry drew huge criticism then by releasing a list of 10,789 Razakars who collaborated with the Pakistani occupation forces during the War of Liberation in 1971.

Also read: Govt finally publishes list of 10,789 Razakars

Although Minister Haque claimed that the list was published in the first phase after scrutinising various documents, a good number of freedom fighters and their relatives were allegedly mentioned in it.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina later assured the protesters that the list of Razakars will go for further scrutiny.

“I want to say unequivocally that no freedom fighter will be labelled as Razakar. It won’t happen … it's impossible … it won’t occur at least during my tenure,” she said while addressing a programme at Ganobhaban on December 18. 

Later on the day, the ministry withheld the Razakar list and removed it from the ministry website.

Also read: No age limit for becoming freedom fighters: HC

After scrutinising the allegations, a fresh list was supposed to be released by March this year. 

But there has been no apparent progress.