DHAKA, Aug 13, 2018 (BSS) – Liberation War veteran and noted filmmaker and researcher Syed Sajedur Rahman Firoz passed away yesterday after prolonged battle with cancer in London, family sources said. He was 68.
A freedom fighter belonging to Liberation War time Sector 2, Firoz left behind his wife, a son and a host of relatives and well wishers to mourn his death.
“He (Firoz) passed pain free and surrounded by family, after battling cancer for the last two years,” his son wrote in a facebook post adding he breathed his last at 11 am BST while his namaz-e-janaza was held at London’s Brick lane Mosque.
Details of his burial plan could not be known immediately.
In his long checkered career, he earned the fame of being a renowned filmmaker producing a number of classical documentaries with one being on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman alongside the anti-British revolutionaries like Surya Sen and Binod Bihari.
A close friend of Bangabandhu’s eldest son Sheikh Kamal, Firoz is more known as philanthropist for his generous service to the people in need in the country though he spent most of his life in Europe.
He was a trustee of world’s first London-based secular NGO Toynbee Hall and Sir William Beverage Foundation founded by fellow 1971 veteran Rahman Jilani.
In 2009, he founded Media Box in Bangladesh to produce documentary films and specialised music videos alongside publishing books on illuminated personalities and on historical, cultural and archaeological heritages.
The concept and vision of Media Box is primarily to highlight Bangladesh’s history, culture, archaeological heritages and lifestyles of its people.
“We are not producing commercial films. All our documentaries are based on solid research works. Some of our researches took one to two years to complete,” Firoz said in a recent media interview.