Photo of a martyr

When I received the news of the shooting, I was in my office at the Provincial Secretariat. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon.

As soon as I got the news, I left the office and went to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

There, I saw many people, including Dr Muhammad Shahidullah, Basanta Kumar Das, Dhirendranath Dutt and Nellie Sengupta.

Many of the injured students were still lying on the hospital floor.

I saw Nuruddin's wife Halima, who was then a medical college student.

She told me that the body of the student whose skull had been blown up was kept in a room at the back of the hospital and there was no one there but a scavenger. Halima very carefully led me to the room where the body was lying on a bed covered with a sheet.

I saw the boy's skull -- completely blown up. It was a shocking scene.

I then asked Halima if the body could be photographed and if she could arrange it. She agreed.

A photographer named Amanul was then working in the Eden Building. I came out of the medical college and found him in front of the field. He was wearing a full sleeve Hawaiian shirt with a camera hidden inside. I explained the whole matter to him and asked him to take a picture.

It was decided that I would not go with Amanul. He would go alone with Halima. I introduced her from a distance. When she gave a signal, Amanul went there and took the picture very quickly.

I went to Amanul's house in the evening and saw that the picture. A few copies of it were made and one was sent to The Azad because it was heard that the newspaper's editor Abul Kalam Shamsuddin had resigned from the provincial council.

I had also heard that the true story of the 21st February incident would be published in The Azad. And so, arrangements were also made to print the picture in the paper.

However, around two o'clock in the morning, The Azad's authorities, either Maulana Akram Khan or Sadrul Anam Khan (Khalil Mia), had objected and the picture was ultimately was not published. 

A copy of the picture was also sent to the students and was later published in a pamphlet brought out by them.

The pamphlets, however, were later seized by police.

Kazi Mohammad Idris was an employee of the Information Department during the language movement in 1952.

Source:  This is an abridged version of Kazi Mohammad Idris's interview published in Bhasha Andolon Prasanga: Katipay Dalil (Ed. Badruddin Umar, Bangla Academy, 1995.)

Translated by Shamsuddoza Sajen