Birshreshtha Flight Lt. MOTIUR RAHMAN

[manik]

(Reprinted from The Daily Star, March 24, 2005)

Elegy for a Bir Sreshtha
Ashiqur Rahman

Thirty-four years have gone by since the Liberation War, but successive
governments have not taken any initiative to bring back martyred Flight
Lieutenant Matiur Rahman's (Bir Sreshtha) grave from Pakistan. Recently
Milly Rahman, wife of Matiur Rahman, has appealed to the prime minister
for steps to shift her husband's grave to Bangladesh so that the nation
can pay homage to Matiur, a martyr to the cause of the country's
independence.


Matiur died in a crash on August 20 in 1971 while endeavouring to join
the Liberation War with a T-33 aircraft from the Mashrur Airbase of
Karachi. He was buried at a graveyard entitled for the fourth class
employees. The Pakistani authorities even dared to disgrace the gallant
hero by hanging his photograph and identifying him as a Gaddar
(Traitor) at the main entrance to the Mashrur Airbase. "My husband's
grave still lies in Pakistan amid sheer dishonour despite the fact that
34 years have gone by since the Liberation War," Milly Rahman
aggrieved. "My daughter, Mahim Matiur Khandaker, first officially
applied to the government for relocating his father's grave to
Bangladesh immediately after visiting the grave in Pakistan back in
1994," she said.


In 2003, the government decided to build memorials to the country's
seven Bir Shrestha in the places where they died. But for Matiur
Rahman, the government decided to build the memorial near the city's
Bijoy Sarani though he died in Pakistan, she added. "In a programme of
laying the foundation stone of the memorial to Matiur Rahman, I once
again requested the government to act to relocate the grave," Milly
said. "After writing about it in a national daily on December 2004, I
received huge response from the public and everyone encouraged me to
apply to the prime minister," she added. She called on the entire
nation to join her in demanding the relocation.


Citing examples of former president Ziaur Rahman and Momtaj, wife of
emperor Shahjahan, Milly said "Shifting graves from one place to
another is nothing new in the Muslim world, so I hope the concerned
authorities will act to meet my demand," she
said.


A concerned government official recently said that religious provisions
do not permit replacing a grave. He said, however, that the government
would take its decision in this regard after considering various
factors.

Justice Mohammad Golam Rabbani, retired judge of the Supreme Court
Appellate Division, said that Islam does not directly prohibit moving a
grave to another place. "In the case of relocating a grave, there is
no specific example in Islam," he said. Besides, lifting bodies from
graves for the sake of proper investigation are not unusual in the
country, he added. "On the principles of justice, the concerned
authorities should decide in favour of moving the grave to Bangladesh,"
Rabbani observed. "There are numerous examples of relocation of
graves, and even in our country late president Ziaur Rahman's grave was
shifted from Chittagong to Dhaka," he said adding that Yasser Arafat
was recently buried in Ramallah in a way that Palestinian people can
shift their leader's grave to Jerusalem in future.

A number of social and environmental organisations have already
expressed solidarity with Milly Rahman. Abu Naser Khan, Convenor of
Save the Environment, said that they would demonstrate ahead of the
Independence Day in favour of relocation of Bir Sreshtha Matiur's
grave. (The Daily Star, March 24, 2005).




(More on Birsreshtha Motiur Rahman from Banglapedia):


Rahman, (Bir Srestha) Matiur (1941-1971) martyr in the WAR OF
LIBERATION. Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman was born in DHAKA on 29
November 1941. He received his primary education at Dhaka Collegiate
School. Next he got himself admitted into Pakistan Air Force Public
School at Sargoda in West Pakistan. After completing his twelfth class
course there he entered Pakistan Air Force Academy. He was commissioned
in June 1963 and was posted at Risalpur, West Pakistan. He successfully
completed the Jet Conversion Course in Karachi before he was appointed
a Jet Pilot in Peshawar.

Rahman made a secret plan of hijacking an aircraft. His aim was to join
the liberation forces with the hijacked plane. On the morning of 20
August Pilot Officer Minhaz Rashid was scheduled to fly in a T-33
aircraft from Masrur Airbase in Karachi with Matiur Rahman as his
trainer. The T-33 aircraft was code-named 'Bluebird'. During the
training flight Matiur Rahman attempted to take control of the aircraft
into his own hands, but failed. The plane crashed in Thatta, a place
near the Indian border. Matiur's dead body was found near the crash
sight, but no traces of Minhaz's dead body could be discovered. Matiur
Rahman was buried at the graveyard of fourth class employees at Masrur
Airbase.
Matiur Rahman was awarded the highest state title of honour 'Bir
Srestha' in recognition of his patriotism and sacrifice. [Md. Selim)

[manik]

(DAILY STAR, March 26, 2005)

Front Page
Monuments for the 7 Birsreshthas

Sabrina Karim Murshed

The government will erect monuments for the seven Birsreshthas and
construct commemorative school and college buildings in their home
areas to pay homage to the country's highest gallantry awardees. The
war heroes -- Captain Mahiuddin Jahangir, Lance Naik Nur Mohammed
Sheikh, Sepoy Hamidur Rahman, Lance Naik Munshi Abdur Rauf, Flight Lt M
Matiur Rahman, Engineer Ruhul Amin and Sepoy Mostafa Kamal --
sacrificed their lives for the country's liberation in 1971. Six of the
mausoleums will be constructed at their graves in Moulvibazar, Jessore,
Khulna, Rangamati, Chapainawabganj and Brahmanbaria. However, the
monument for Matiur Rahman will be built on the premises of Bangladesh
Air Force Shaheen School and College in the capital, as his grave is in
Karachi, Pakistan.

The Tk 5.98-crore project now awaiting the approval of the Planning
Commission is scheduled for an immediate start and expected to be
complete by June next year, according to sources at the Ministry of
Liberation War Affairs. "Nothing has been done so far under any
government initiative to honour the supreme sacrifices of the
Birsreshthas," said a high official at the ministry on condition of
anonymity. He believes the project will make their families and the
local people happy.

The project conceived in the last fiscal year initially aimed at only
constructing monuments, each at a cost of Tk 67 lakh. It was later
revised bringing the estimated cost of each monument down to Tk 9.10
lakh and allocating Tk 60 lakh to construct a school or a college
building in their names in each of their home areas -- Narsingdi,
Barisal, Jhenidah, Bhola, Noakhali, Faridpur and Narail.

A committee headed by the deputy commissioner has been formed in each
district to select where to construct the educational institutions as
memorials to the liberation martyrs, the sources said. The Public Works
Department will build the monuments and the Education Engineering
Department the academic buildings. (DS, March 26, 2005)

DAILY STAR, March 26, 2006

Human Chain Demands
Bring Matiur's remains back from Pakistan
Staff Correspondent

Citizens held a rally and formed human chain at Shahbagh in the city
yesterday demanding the government's immediate initiative regarding
bringing back the remains of martyred Birsreshtha flight lieutenant
Matiur Rahman from his grave in Pakistan.

Speakers at the rally organised by the Save Environment Movement (SEM)
expressed solidarity with Milly Rahman, wife of Birsreshtha Matiur
Rahman, who recently applied to the prime minister in this regard.
Although 34 years have passed since the Liberation War, no governments
took any initiative to bring back the body of Birsreshtha Matiur Rahman
who had been buried at the Mashrur Airbase graveyard in Karachi,
Pakistan, entitled for the fourth class employees, SEM convenor Abu
Naser Khan said.

The Pakistani authorities even dared to disgrace Matiur by identifying
him as a "gaddar" (traitor) at the main entrance to the airbase, he
added.

"There are numerous examples of relocation of graves in our
country--late president Ziaur Rahman's grave was shifted from
Chittagong to Dhaka," Golam Kibria, co-ordinator of Bishwa Shahitya
Kendra, reasoned.
"If we cannot shift Matiur's grave from Pakistan, it will be a great
shame for the nation as well as all freedom fighters of the country,"
freedom fighter Abul Kashem said.

The speakers also placed emphasis on publishing a complete biography of
the seven Birsreshthas nationally.

Shahjahan Mridha Benu, AKM Maksud, advocate Abul Kalam Azad,
environment activist Subrata Das, Binoy Mandal and Robin Biswas also
spoke at the rally. (DAILY STAR, March 26, 2005).



(The NEWAGE, March 26, 2005)

Call to bring Matiur's
remains from Karachi

STAFF CORRESPONDENT


Save the Environment Movement formed a human chain at Shahbagh in Dhaka
on Friday and demanded that the government should bring back the
remains of martyred flight lieutenant Matiur Rahman Bir Sreshtha from
Pakistan for a burial in Bangladesh with state honours.

The speakers said Matiur, one of the top seven national heroes, lies
in Pakistan. He was buried in a graveyard of the Mashrur Airbase in
Karachi marked for Class IV employees.

He was identified by the Pakistanis as 'gaddar' (traitor). The
speakers termed this a disgrace for the nation.
The organisation convener, Abu Naser Khan, told New Age that the
human chain before Independence Day was symbolic as 'we want to
remind all that our great hero is lying abroad in utter dishonour.'

He said bring his remains back in Bangladesh is not only a matter of
national dignity, but also an indication to the commitment to recognise
self-sacrifice. 'If recognition is not given, nobody will come
forward in future to do things for the country.'

Freedom fighter Shahjahan Mridha Benu, who had joined the war at the
age of 18, said, 'I wonder whether I should be proud of being a
freedom fighter any more. Is it not a national disgrace that we failed
to our hero with honours?'

Fahima Haie, a third-year student of the Eden College told New Age
that during her childhood, she read about Matiur in textbook, but did
not know how disgracefully he had been buried until recently.
A number of social and green groups, including Bangladesh
Muktijoddha Command Council, Green Force, Institute of Environment and
Development, Bishwa Sahitya Kendra, World Peace Forum and Jana Udyog
joined hands with the movement. The movement plans to submit a
memorandum to the president and the prime minister next week.
The event began at 10:45am and lasted for about an hour.
(NEWAGE, March 26, 3005)


(THE NEWAGE, March 26, 2005)

EDITORIAL
Bir Sreshtha's remains
On this auspicious day of a remembrance of the struggle for national
freedom, it makes sense for the nation to recall the men and women who
died so that the nation could live in freedom and dignity. One of the
courageous souls in the history of this land is Flight Lieutenant
Matiur Rahman, the patriotic Bengali who lost his life even as he
attempted to find his way from Pakistan to the field of struggle in
Bangladesh. His was an unfortunate flight, for it crashed even before
it could make its way out of Pakistani territory. The Pakistani
authorities, vilifying him as a traitor, buried him in a lowly grave in
Karachi, where his remains happen to be after all these years. A
grateful Bengali nation conferred on him the highest honour of Bir
Sreshtha for his extraordinary devotion to the struggle for liberty.

It now becomes reasonable to ask the government of Bangladesh to
undertake the moves necessary for his remains to be brought back home.
Indeed, the task of negotiating with the Pakistan authorities about
retrieving Matiur Rahman's remains from Masrur air force base and
bringing them to Dhaka ought to have been undertaken long ago. Ten
years ago, his daughter made an emotional trip to Karachi to see her
father's grave. Now the time has surely arrived when this nation must
seriously impress upon the authorities the need to have our martyred
hero come home. We understand that Matiur Rahman's widow has already
appealed to the prime minister on the issue. We know too that there are
people with religious perspectives on the question of reburial. But
since there are precedents for such reburials and since the bigger
cause is a full preservation of history, it is only fitting and proper
that Matiur Rahman's bones are brought back to this country. He has
lain in foreign land for too long. (THE NEWAGE, March 26, 2005)

Post by manik
(Reprinted from The Daily Star, March 24, 2005)
Elegy for a Bir Sreshtha
Ashiqur Rahman
Thirty-four years have gone by since the Liberation War, but

successive

Post by manik
governments have not taken any initiative to bring back martyred Flight
Lieutenant Matiur Rahman's (Bir Sreshtha) grave from Pakistan.

Recently

Post by manik
Milly Rahman, wife of Matiur Rahman, has appealed to the prime

minister

Post by manik
for steps to shift her husband's grave to Bangladesh so that the nation
can pay homage to Matiur, a martyr to the cause of the country's
independence.
Matiur died in a crash on August 20 in 1971 while endeavouring to join
the Liberation War with a T-33 aircraft from the Mashrur Airbase of
Karachi. He was buried at a graveyard entitled for the fourth class
employees. The Pakistani authorities even dared to disgrace the gallant
hero by hanging his photograph and identifying him as a Gaddar
(Traitor) at the main entrance to the Mashrur Airbase. "My husband's
grave still lies in Pakistan amid sheer dishonour despite the fact that
34 years have gone by since the Liberation War," Milly Rahman
aggrieved. "My daughter, Mahim Matiur Khandaker, first officially
applied to the government for relocating his father's grave to
Bangladesh immediately after visiting the grave in Pakistan back in
1994," she said.
In 2003, the government decided to build memorials to the country's
seven Bir Shrestha in the places where they died. But for Matiur
Rahman, the government decided to build the memorial near the city's
Bijoy Sarani though he died in Pakistan, she added. "In a programme of
laying the foundation stone of the memorial to Matiur Rahman, I once
again requested the government to act to relocate the grave," Milly
said. "After writing about it in a national daily on December 2004, I
received huge response from the public and everyone encouraged me to
apply to the prime minister," she added. She called on the entire
nation to join her in demanding the relocation.
Citing examples of former president Ziaur Rahman and Momtaj, wife of
emperor Shahjahan, Milly said "Shifting graves from one place to
another is nothing new in the Muslim world, so I hope the concerned
authorities will act to meet my demand," she
said.
A concerned government official recently said that religious

provisions

Post by manik
do not permit replacing a grave. He said, however, that the

government

Post by manik
would take its decision in this regard after considering various
factors.
Justice Mohammad Golam Rabbani, retired judge of the Supreme Court
Appellate Division, said that Islam does not directly prohibit moving a
grave to another place. "In the case of relocating a grave, there is
no specific example in Islam," he said. Besides, lifting bodies from
graves for the sake of proper investigation are not unusual in the
country, he added. "On the principles of justice, the concerned
authorities should decide in favour of moving the grave to

Bangladesh,"

Post by manik
Rabbani observed. "There are numerous examples of relocation of
graves, and even in our country late president Ziaur Rahman's grave was
shifted from Chittagong to Dhaka," he said adding that Yasser Arafat
was recently buried in Ramallah in a way that Palestinian people can
shift their leader's grave to Jerusalem in future.
A number of social and environmental organisations have already
expressed solidarity with Milly Rahman. Abu Naser Khan, Convenor of
Save the Environment, said that they would demonstrate ahead of the
Independence Day in favour of relocation of Bir Sreshtha Matiur's
grave. (The Daily Star, March 24, 2005).
Rahman, (Bir Srestha) Matiur (1941-1971) martyr in the WAR OF
LIBERATION. Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman was born in DHAKA on 29
November 1941. He received his primary education at Dhaka Collegiate
School. Next he got himself admitted into Pakistan Air Force Public
School at Sargoda in West Pakistan. After completing his twelfth class
course there he entered Pakistan Air Force Academy. He was

commissioned

Post by manik
in June 1963 and was posted at Risalpur, West Pakistan. He

successfully

Post by manik
completed the Jet Conversion Course in Karachi before he was

appointed

Post by manik
a Jet Pilot in Peshawar.
Rahman made a secret plan of hijacking an aircraft. His aim was to join
the liberation forces with the hijacked plane. On the morning of 20
August Pilot Officer Minhaz Rashid was scheduled to fly in a T-33
aircraft from Masrur Airbase in Karachi with Matiur Rahman as his
trainer. The T-33 aircraft was code-named 'Bluebird'. During the
training flight Matiur Rahman attempted to take control of the

aircraft

Post by manik
into his own hands, but failed. The plane crashed in Thatta, a place
near the Indian border. Matiur's dead body was found near the crash
sight, but no traces of Minhaz's dead body could be discovered. Matiur
Rahman was buried at the graveyard of fourth class employees at Masrur
Airbase.
Matiur Rahman was awarded the highest state title of honour 'Bir
Srestha' in recognition of his patriotism and sacrifice. [Md. Selim)

[manik]

Fly Icharus, fly high!

by Mahfuz Sadique

A small patch of land in the graveyard for Class IV employees at the
Mashrur Airbase in Karachi, belongs to Bangladesh. We may have earned
our own land but that piece of land � a grave � is our own. There lies,
uncared and unmentioned, Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman, Bir Sreshtha.
Thirty-four years after independence, even with a separate ministry for
liberation war affairs, we have not yet reclaimed what is our own.

�I have nothing to ask from the country now. I have had a full life.
All I want for my husband is to bring him back home. He has been lying
there in that grave for 34 years where they had marked his grave as
that of a gaddar [traitor]. Is he not Bangladesh�s hero? Why then have
his remains not been brought back yet?� asks Matiur�s wife Milly, whose
recent drive to bring back her husband�s grave has gathered momentum.

It was August 20, 1971, several months into a �no flying�
restriction on all East Pakistani pilots. Matiur decided it was time to
break free. He boarded a T-33 aircraft and took off with an apprentice
from West Pakistan. A few minutes into the flight, the plane crashed,
burying his dream to fight for his country with the weapon he knew best
� flying.

His daughter Mahim Matiur Khandakar, who was a little girl when his
father left home never to come back, became the only Bangladeshi ever
to visit his grave in 1994. She had grown up with the knowledge that
her father was one of the great heroes who had sacrificed his life for
his country. However, it was not until she was 23 that she had the
chance to see her father�s grave.
�She was allowed to visit the grave in 1994. On her return Mahim
officially applied to the government to relocate Matiur�s grave to
Bangladesh,� says Milly.

And as with all glorious pasts, the government forgot. It was not
until 2003 that the government finally decided to build memorials
honouring the seven Bir Sreshthas at their place of martyrdom. As
Matiur died on Pakistani soil, the government decided to build a
memorial near Bijoy Sarani in the capital.

At the foundation-laying ceremony in 2003, Milly and Matiur�s elder
brother Khorshed Alam, a retired civil servant and a former Bangladesh
Bank governor, requested the government for the second time to bring
Matiur�s grave home.

�It is not unusual. Nations have always had the custom of relocating
the graves of their statesmen and martyrs whenever and wherever
appropriate. I requested the government to do so in Matiur�s case,�
says Khorshed.

Matiur�s youngest borhter, Alamgir Kabir Samad, is also pursuing
this cause now. And civic consciousness is growing too.

Paribesh Bachao Andolan (Save the Environment Movement), a greens
organisation, is planning to present a memorandum to both the president
and the prime minister for relocation of Bir Sreshtha Matiur Rahman�s
grave.

�We believe it is a must if we are to honour our War of
Independence. We plan to take this up as a movement,� says Abu Naser
Khan, convener of Paribesh Bachao Andolan.

The memory of Matiur has been preserved in writing, at least,
through publication of Bir Sreshtha Matiur Rahman Smarak Grantha by
Agami Prokashani at the Ekushey Book Fair this year.
The book, edited by Rahman, attempts to put together a proper
documentation of her husband�s life.
The Bangladesh Air Force and the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs
are supposed to make a move on the relocation issue. �I have repeatedly
sent letters to both and to the Prime Minister�s Office even. But
nothing has happened yet,� says Milly.

As Matiur�s grandson, Rashad, visits the war heroes� museum in
Washington DC, he finds his grandfather�s name there. He asks Milly of
his great ancestor. Other than a few faded photographs and tales of
glory, she has nothing to show him.
�My Rashad cannot go to see his grandfather�s grave,� says Milly.
�Why? Have we forgotten our heroes?�

When Icharus flied high towards the sun and his wax wings melted, he
had only one dream � to fly. Matiur flew too on that August morning.
His dream was that of a liberated motherland. A son of our soil, our
martyr, lies neglected in some land that is not his own. Like a ghost
trapped in eternal twilight, Matiur�s soul may have reached the skies
of Bangladesh but his bones are trapped in the soils of the condemned
land.

Should he not come back home?

(THE NEW AGE, INDEPENDENCE DAY SUPPLEMENT, March 26, 2005)



Bring the hero home

Nurul Kabir

Nationalist struggles, particularly the anti-imperialist/anti-colonial
movements, always create �heroes� and �traitors� across the world. A
hero born out of the democratic struggles of a particular country can
well be considered a traitor by another whom the struggle is aimed
against, and vice versa. It all depends on the perspectives. Take the
example of Matiur Rahman, a flight lieutenant of the Pakistan Air Force
in 1971. The people of Bangladesh regard Matiur as a great hero, a
great patriot, a martyr who sacrificed his life at the altar of the
country�s struggle for national independence.

The story is simple. When the erstwhile military junta of Pakistan
began the genocide of the unarmed Bengalis in Dhaka on 25 March, 1971,
instead of handing over power to their representatives who were
victorious in the general elections, Matiur was stranded at the air
force headquarters in the erstwhile West Pakistan, under a �no-flying�
restriction imposed on all Bengali pilots.

Eventually came August 20, 1971. Matiur decided that it was time to
become free to fight for his homeland. He boarded a T-33 aircraft and
took off with an apprentice pilot. A few minutes into the flight the
plane crashed, shattering his dream to fight for his homeland, then
under the brutal occupation of the Pakistani army. His dream of freeing
his country eventually came true when Bangladesh emerged as a
nation-state following the defeat of the Pakistani army in Dhaka on 16
December the same year.

The government of Bangladesh rightly honoured Matiur, along with six
others, with the gallantry award called Bir Sreshtha, hero of the
highest category, in 1972. Besides, in 2003, the government built
memorials honouring the seven Bir Sreshthas in their respective places
of martyrdom. As Matiur died on Pakistani soil, the government built a
memorial on Bijoy Sarani, the �victory avenue�, in the capital.

However, one can hardly expect the erstwhile military-political
establishment of Pakistan to honour the body of the great Bengali hero,
particularly when its junta harassed in many ways, including
imprisonment, some West Pakistanis of the time who supported the cause
of the Bengalis during the war in 1971. The military junta buried
Matiur in a graveyard set aside for Class-IV employees. Besides, the
Pakistani authorities reportedly desecrated the image of the gallant
hero by hanging his photograph and identifying him as a Gaddar
(traitor) at the main entrance to the Mashrur airbase in Karachi. He
was a gaddar, indeed, from the Pakistani politico-military
establishment�s point of view.

In this regard, one does not fail to remember the case of Robert
Clive of England, although the comparison is a little far-fetched.
Clive, an insignificant employee of the East India Company who
eventually laid the foundation of the British empire in India for about
two hundred years by masterminding the ouster of Nawab Sirajuddaula
from power in Bengal in June, 1757, is rightly considered a hero in the
United Kingdom. Even 150 years after the defeat of the Nawab�s soldiers
in Palashi, an English poet, William Topaz McGonagall, glorified Clive
in the following lines: ?And nearly all India now belongs to this
country/Which has been captured by land and by sea/By some of the
greatest men that ever did live/But the greatest of them all was Robert
Clive?. The government of the United Kingdom also recognised Clive�s
�greatness� in many ways, including awarding him the title of Lord.

However, Robert Clive rightly remains, and will continue to remain,
a villain in the minds of the millions living in the
Indo-Pak-Bangladesh subcontinent, because he was instrumental behind
the colonial enslavement of the subcontinent for two centuries. The
history of nationalist struggles, as hinted earlier, provides hundreds
of such instances, in which the same person is simultaneously adored
and glorified by some as a hero and hated and despised by others as a
villain, depending on the perspectives. Matiur is not an exception.

What is, however, more important now, particularly on the part of
the government of Bangladesh, is to save the body of Matiur from being
humiliated any more. And this is exactly what the family of the great
hero has consistently been demanding of the government for quite some
time now. It is good to see that a section of the press has also
started supporting the cause. Better late then never.

Matiur?s daughter, Mahim Matiur Khandakar, who was a baby when her
father left home never to come back, visited her father?s grave in
1994, when she was 23. On her return from Pakistan, Mahim officially
applied to the government to bring Matiur�s remains home. Matiur�s
elder brother, Khorshed Alam, a retired civil servant and a former
governor of Bangladesh Bank, made a similar request to the government
while laying the foundation stone for the memorial in 2003.

Matiur�s wife, Milly Rahman, has also written, repeatedly, to the
authorities of the Bangladesh Air Force and to the Prime Minister�s
Office, but �nothing has happened yet,� reported New Age, another
English language daily based in Dhaka, in its Independence Day
supplement on March 26.The author of the feature article, Mahfuz
Sadique, lamented that in Pakistan ?lies, uncared for �and unmentioned,
Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman, Bir Sreshtha�. �Thirty-four years
after independence, but even with a separate ministry for liberation
war affairs, we have not yet �reclaimed what is our own.�

However, by all indications, the civic consciousness in Dhaka is
growing fast as regards the Matiur�s family?s demand for the relocation
of the grave. �After writing about the issue in a national daily in
December last year, I received a huge response from the public and
everyone encouraged me to apply to the prime minister,� says Matiur�s
wife. She has urged ?the entire nation? to join her in demanding
relocation of the hero�s grave.

Meanwhile, the Paribesh Bachao Andolan, a green group in Dhaka, is
planning to present a memorandum to both the president and the prime
minister for relocation of Matiur Rahman?s grave. ?We believe it is a
must if we are to honour our War of Independence. We plan to take this
up as a movement,? says Abu Naser Khan, convener of the group.

Let Bangladesh bring the hero home and Pakistan get rid of the
traitor.
(The weekly Holiday, April 1, 2005).


NEW AGE EDITORIAL

Bir Sreshtha�s remains

On this auspicious day of a remembrance of the struggle for national
freedom, it makes sense for the nation to recall the men and women who
died so that the nation could live in freedom and dignity. One of the
courageous souls in the history of this land is Flight Lieutenant
Matiur Rahman, the patriotic Bengali who lost his life even as he
attempted to find his way from Pakistan to the field of struggle in
Bangladesh. His was an unfortunate flight, for it crashed even before
it could make its way out of Pakistani territory. The Pakistani
authorities, vilifying him as a traitor, buried him in a lowly grave in
Karachi, where his remains happen to be after all these years. A
grateful Bengali nation conferred on him the highest honour of Bir
Sreshtha for his extraordinary devotion to the struggle for liberty.


It now becomes reasonable to ask the government of Bangladesh to
undertake the moves necessary for his remains to be brought back home.
Indeed, the task of negotiating with the Pakistan authorities about
retrieving Matiur Rahman�s remains from Masrur air force base and
bringing them to Dhaka ought to have been undertaken long ago. Ten
years ago, his daughter made an emotional trip to Karachi to see her
father�s grave. Now the time has surely arrived when this nation must
seriously impress upon the authorities the need to have our martyred
hero come home. We understand that Matiur Rahman�s widow has already
appealed to the prime minister on the issue. We know too that there are
people with religious perspectives on the question of reburial. But
since there are precedents for such reburials and since the bigger
cause is a full preservation of history, it is only fitting and proper
that Matiur Rahman�s bones are brought back to this country. He has
lain in foreign land for too long. (THE NEWAGE, March 26, 2005)

[p***@gmail.com]

Flight Lieutenant Birsrestha Matiur Rahman was a pilot in the Pakistan Air Force when the Liberation war broke out. He was born on 29 November 1941 at his paternal house at Age Sadeq Road in Dhaka. After completing his twelfth class course into Pakistan Air force Public School at Sargoda in West Pakistan he entered Pakistan Air Force Academy.