Behind the Scene

From Sylhet

Abdul Muktadir, Martyr, Geologist

Iqbal Siddiquee

DR. Abdul Muktadir is one of the Dhaka University professors brutally killed in the hands of the Pakistan Army in the night following 25 March, 1971. He was a professor in the Department of Geology.

Martyred intellectual Professor Abdul Muktadir was born on 19 February, 1940 in the village of Silam Pashchimpara in Sylhet sadar upazila. His father Moulvi Abdul Jabbar was also a renowned social activist and founder-headmaster of Silam PL Junior High School.

Muktadir's education started at the Chakerbazar Government Primary school, and then he was admitted into the Silam Junior High School. He studied at the Raja GC high school in Sylhet and passed his matriculation in 1956. He finished his Intermediate from the MC College in Sylhet in 1958. He passed his B. Sc from Dhaka University in 1960 and earned his Master's degree in Geology 1962.

Muktadir then joined the Water Development Board as a geologist and served there till 1964 prior to joining Dhaka University on 19 October that year as lecturer. He went to the UK and finished his PhD there. He intended to go to the United States for further research, but all that ended when the Pak Army took his life.

It was dawn. Dr. Muktadir was getting ready to offer his Fazr prayers when there was a knock on his door. As soon as he opened the door, he was grabbed by the army men who shot at him. Soon afterwards, the killers took away the body of the professor along with the bodies of his other colleagues to the Rayerbazar mass grave. His relatives later managed to recover Dr. Muktadir's body and buried it near the mosque near his father-in law's house at 78/A Purana Paltan in the capital.

There is a Shahid Muktadir Jadughar at the Geology Department. The government has released postage stamps to honour the martyred intellectuals- Dr. Muktadir was one of them. A primary school was established in his village- Dr. Muktadir Academy.

The founder Vice-Chancellor of Shahjalal University of Science & Technology Professor Sadar Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury once expressed an interest in starting a chair in the university named after Dr. Muktadir.

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