1971 martyr Col Qadir’s death anniversary tomorrow

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DHAKA, April 16, 2018 (BSS) – Army engineers are to observe tomorrow the 47th death anniversary of freedom fighter and martyred intellectual Lt Col Muhammad Abdul Qadir, who was killed by the Pakistani troops at the very onset of the Liberation War.

Qadirabad Cantonment, named after the martyr in Natore, is set to stage a milad mahfil at its Central Mosque seeking divine peace for the departed soul.

An army sapper Qadir joined the Liberation War as he was serving on deputation as the controller of operations at the then East Pakistan Oil & Gas Development Corporation in Chittagong but he was caught by the Pakistani troops as he secretly returned home to see his ailing wife on April 17. He embraced martyrdom on the same day.

The government later established a cantonment named after him and also issued a postal stamp of him as one of the martyred intellectuals.

Qadir’s grave was found in 2007 and he was reburied with full state and military honour in 2011 at Qadirabad Cantonment.

Marking the death anniversary, a discussion was held yesterday at Dipanpur publishing house in Elephant Road on a book “Liberation War: An Unknown Chapter” written on Qadir by his son eminent journalist Nadeem Qadir, currently the Roving Editor of the Asian Age.

Prominent journalist Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury launched the book in London in 2017 while it was published in the Ekhushey Boi Mela on the same year.

Researcher and Bangla Academy director general Shamsuzzaman Khan attended the discussion as the chief guest, joined by 1971 researchers and 1971veterans colonel (retd) Kazi Saaazad Ali Bir Protik and journalist Haroon Habib with the book’s editor Imran Mahfuz appearing as the moderator.

After decades of desperate search by Nadeem Qadir and four years into the discovery of the grave of the 1971 martyr, the remains were extracted from an earlier unidentified grave in Panchlaish area in Chittagong amid religious rituals and military ceremonies. Subsequently, it was reburied in Natore.