US expart heroic freedom fighter Atiqur Rahman Salu
Noman Sabit: Atiqur Rahman Salu, a heroic freedom fighter living in the United States and a former student leader, has died (We belong to Allah and surely we are returning to Him). He died at a hospital in New Jersey at around 5:30 a.m. local time on Tuesday (December 5). He was 75 years old at the time of his death. He is survived by his wife, one son and one daughter and numerous relatives and well-wishers. He was suffering from cancer for a long time.He died last week after being admitted to a hospital in Passaic City, New Jersey after suffering from pneumonia. He lived in Passaic City, New Jersey.
Atiqur Rahman Salu was the former chairman of the International Farakka Committee and a group of US-split Fobana. He was diagnosed with cancer in the middle of this year. Since then he was undergoing treatment and was taking regular chemo as per doctor’s advice. He was admitted to the ICU of a hospital inPassaic City, New Jersey on Saturday, November 30, when he contracted pneumonia last week.
The late Atiqur Rahman Salu, who had an illustrious life, was born in Tangail in 1948. At the end of high school, the traditional Kartia College (now Sa’adat University College) of Tangail District was AGS and graduated from there and later studied at Dhaka University and later got a law degree. Between 1962 and 1969, he led and imprisoned the anti-Ayub student movement in every student movement in Tangail, as well as in the entire East Pakistan at that time, including Dhaka.
The General Secretary of East Pakistan Student Union at that time Tangail District-that is, Tangail District, the position of president and later a member of the Central Committee of East Pakistan Student Union and later the organizing secretary of the organization (Menon Group), successively the General Secretary of East Bengal Revolutionary Student Union and Bangladesh Revolutionary Student Union and was the president. He was one of the organizers of the glorious people’s uprising of 1969, the great liberation war and the struggle for independence after the bloody steps of the language movement of 1952. Originally, poet Salu was a worker in the cultural arena. From there gradually involvement with the student movement.
On February 22, 1970 at the historic Paltan Maidan, a rally of lakhs of people held at the initiative of the East Pakistan Students Union proposed the establishment of independent democratic East Bengal. This important proposal was read by Atiqur Rahman Salu, the then organizing secretary of the organization. Bangladesh was achieved at the cost of many sacrifices and the blood of millions of people, his role in our glorious freedom struggle and liberation war is outstanding. During the Liberation War in 1971, the Bangladesh Jatiya Mukti Sangram Coordinating Committee was formed under the chairmanship of Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani, an oppressed public leader in India, and he was the central member of that committee.
Atiqur Rahman Salu did not deviate even in the wind of change of times. The visionary of the freedom of Bangladesh and the great hero of the Farakka Long March, the oppressed public leader Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan has worked tirelessly for the country and the people from the proximity of Bhasani. Participated in the historic Farakka Long March in 1976 under the leadership of Maulana Bhasani. Later, on March 4, 2005, he led the Long March at Chilmari in Kurigram district to protest India’s unilateral withdrawal of water from the upstream and to protect and realize our river water rights on the initiative of the International Farakka Committee, where more than 5 lakh people gathered. He worked tirelessly as the Chairman of the International Farakka Committee.
Atiqur Rahman Salu was a poet, lyricist, composer, writer, activist and a brave freedom fighter. Has practiced poetry since 1960s. His first book of poetry is ‘Poetry for Anika’ and his second book is ‘Another Kind of Poetry’. Anika was the younger daughter of Atiqur Rahman Salu. On May 30, 2006, 16-year-old Anika died on July 31, 2006 after being injured in a car accident in Virginia, USA.
BP/SM
