<i>Nobody inquires about my welfare now</i>
Shafiar Rahman
Language Movement veteran septuagenarian Shafiar Rahman goes to the local Shaheed Minar on 21st February every year to place wreath on the altar.
However, the glorious son of the soil does so with difficulty, holding his grandson's hand, as he is suffering from diabetes, heart disease and glaucoma.
Recalling his local Language Movement comrades with whom he suffered imprisonment in Dhaka Central Jail in 1952, he said, “All of them have passed away one by one but Allah has kept me alive only to narrate the role of the district in the Language Movement to the new generations.”
In 1952, Shafiar Rahman, then a matriculation examinee, was the general secretary of the then Nilphamari sub-division unit of Muslim Chhatra League.
On 21st February, strike was observed in all the educational institutions of the sub-divisional town as a part of the central programme launched throughout the then East Pakistan and a rally was held on the premises of Muslim Hostel of Nilphamari High School.
The news of February 21 killing of Rafique, Shafique, Salam, Barkat, Jabbar and others by police firing in Dhaka reached the town on the night that day.
In protest of the killing, day long strike was called on 22 and 23 February.
Defying threat by the then non-Bengali sub-divisional officer (SDO) Monwar Hossain, students and common people worked to make the programmes successful.
Next day police arrested Dabir Uddin Ahmed and Abu Nazem Mohammad Ali, two prominent political figures of the town, the then Muslim Chhatra League Secretary Shafiar Rahman, Jubo League convenor Shamsul Haque and four others for their role in Language Movement.
After stay for seven days in Rangpur Central Jail and then in Dhaka Central Jail for one-month, they were released.
During the detention, Shafiar Rahman and a few others appeared in the matriculation examination under police escort with special permission.
“Nobody inquires about my welfare. Government officials of the district look for me only on 21st February to make their official programmes ornamental. My last desire before death is to write down a detailed history of the role of the district in the Language Movement,” he said.
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