War hero Hamidur returns home today (10 Dec 07)
The remains of Bir Shreshtha Sepoy Hamidur Rahman, one of the seven independence war heroes given the highest gallantry award, are scheduled to be brought back home from Tripura in India today.
Hamidur, who was killed in a battleground in a village, Ambassa, in Dhalai of Tripura, near the Moulvibazar border of Bangladesh on October 28, 1971, had been buried there for more than 36 years.
Senior Indian leaders and officials in a ceremony, attended by thousands of people, handed over the coffin containing the remains to a Bangladesh delegation at Hatimarachara in Tripura, media reports said. The Indian troops gave the independence war hero a guard of honour.
After his martyrdom, about a hundred soldiers of the First Bengal regiment were either killed or injured trying to capture the Pakistani army base, said Sajjad Ali Zahir, a member of the Bangladesh delegation. He, along with Hamidur’s brother Fazlur Rahman, recently located the grave of the hero.
‘Hamidur’s body was brought to Hatimarachara, 40 kilometres inside India, by one Rehaman Mian and given a proper Muslim burial,’ he is quoted to have said.
Hamidur’s grave had fallen prey to development and was under a pond, an Indian satellite channel reported quoting Abdul Ali, a local resident of Ambasa.
‘My father knew Hamidur Rahman well when he crossed over for the war. From childhood I have been watching this grave here, I asked my father about it. He said that it is Hamidur Rahman’s grave. During my school days, I used to clean the grave,’ he said.
The seven-member Bangladesh delegation, led by a joint secretary of the liberation war affairs ministry, Humayun Kabir Khan, on Friday went to Agartala to receive the remains of Hamidur.
The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, also Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, is expected to receive the remains of Hamidur on behalf of the nation and place flowers on the coffin in the National Parade Square on Tuesday.
The delegation will bring Hamidur’s remains to Bangladesh through Bibirbazar in Comilla at about 3:00pm, the liberation war affairs secretary, AK Mahbubul Alam, told the newsmen in the Press Information Department conference room on Sunday.
The remains of the hero will be received with a guard of honour at Bibirbazar and remain in the Comilla cantonment.
A motorcade with the remains will start from the Comilla cantonment at around 6:00am to reach the National Parade Square by 10:00am. A 21-gun salute will herald the arrival of the remains in the Parade Square.
A guard of honour will be presented by the three services and the President’s Guard Regiment.
A namaz-e-janaza for him will hero will be held at around 10:30am. The remains will then be taken in a ceremonial motorcade to the Martyred Intellectuals’ Graveyard at Mirpur and kept for viewing by freedom fighters.
The remains will be laid to rest in the graveyard with the highest state honours.
Hamidur was born in 1945 at Dumuria in Chapra of 24 Parganas in West Bengal. After the partition of India, his family migrated to East Bengal and settled at Khalishpur in Khulna.
He joined the East Bengal Regiment on February 2, 1971 and was posted to the EBR Centre in the Chittagong cantonment. He left the cantonment for his village home as the war began and joined the liberation force at Dhalai.
News source newage | Link Anim Anamika
