# Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman

Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman (9 August 1945 – 28 January 2010) was the chief organizer involved in toppling the Sheikh Mujib regime in Bangladesh. He was convicted and hanged on 28 January 2010 along with co-conspirators Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, A. K. M. Mohiuddin Ahmed, Mohiuddin Ahmed, and Mohammad Bazlul Huda in Dhaka Central Jail, Old Dhaka, for the murder of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, one of the founding leader and the first president of Bangladesh. Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman and his close ally Khandaker Abdur Rashid were the chief organisers of the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 15 August 1975. He was 2IC of the 1st Bengal Lancers Regiment of the Bangladesh Army who led a group of junior army officers in order to overthrow the regime of Sheikh Mujib and install Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad as president of Bangladesh.

## Family background

Dewan Esheratullah Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman was born on 9 August 1946 into an aristocratic Bengali Muslim family of Sayeds. His father was Major Sayed Ataur Rahman, an army doctor and a major in the army. His father was from a renowned family, the Peer family of Rajshahi who held a hereditary title of Dewan from Sufi ancestors. The family were of Hadhrami Ba'Alawi sada origin descending from a Sufi Muslim missionary that had come to preach Islam in the Rajshahi region from Hadhramaut in Yemen centuries prior, he was known as Zinda Peer (Living Saint) locally after he had died, Farooq himself was a 9th generation descendant of him. His mother is Mahmuda Khatun, a daughter of Abdul Latif Khan who belonged to a zamindar family in Jamalpur District in Mymensingh, descending from Turkish soldiers of fortune under the Mughal emperors. Both his paternal and maternal grandfathers were members of the police service, his paternal grandfather Sayed Ashratullah Dewan being an Inspector General of Police in British India. Sayed Ashratullah Dewan was also a prominent Sufi religious figure in the Rajshahi region who too like his ancestors had borne the title Zinda Peer after death. He was also related to several prominent figures of the civil service and politics in Bengal such as Syed Nazrul Islam, Khaled Mosharraf, Ataur Rahman Khan, Noorul Quader Khan, and Azizur Rahman Malik. In fact Noorul Quader Khan was the brother of his mother Mahmuda Khatun.

## Education

Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman's education was widely centered on the postings of his father, Major Dr. Sayed Ataur Rahman who served in the Pakistan Army. He had switched places of education reflecting the location of his father's posting as a doctor in between then West Pakistan and East Pakistan six times in thirteen years for his schooling. He had started off at the Fatima Jinnah Girls School in Comilla of which Farooq had joked about his only time in being in a convent. He also attended Burnhall College in Abbottabad, St. Joseph High School in Dhaka, Station Road School in Rawalpindi, St. Francis' Grammar School in Quetta, Adamjee College in Dhaka, ending his College Education at Kohat with a crash course in Mathematics. He also had a passion for flying which he pursued by getting a solo pilot license at the age of 17 and unsuccessfully attempted to join the Pakistan Airforce. His parents did not intend for him to join the army, he was admitted into Bristol University in England for a course in Aeronautical Engineering, but he had other plans for a career in the army as seen in Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood by Anthony Mascarenhas:
"Caught up in the prevailing patriotic fervour Farook, on his way to college, stopped off at the Inter-services Selection Board office in Kohat and volunteered for a commission. A week later when the call came there was initial disapproval from his mother who didn't want to lose her only son to the army. But Farook, with his father's consent, finally made it to the Pakistan Military Academy at Risalpur where he quickly distinguished himself by becoming battalion sergeant major. When he graduated 4th of 300 officer cadets, he was given his choice of service. Farook chose the armoured corps. "I didn't want to do foot-slogging in the army" he said politely turning down suggestions by Major Ziaur Rahman and Khaled Musharraf, then instructors in the PMA, that he should join the Bengal Regiment. Instead, Farook was appointed to the 13th Lancers."

## Military career

In 1974, Rahman was placed in charge of recovering weapons in Demra, Munshiganj District, Narayanganj District, and Narsingdi District. He had experienced some things which made him critical of the Bangladesh Awami League government. In 1975, Rahman was a major in the Bangladesh Army. He spoke against Mujib to his fellow army officers. He also told them that Mujib would give Bangladesh to India and establish a monarchy in Bangladesh. He and Major Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan discussed ways of removing Mujib from power and asked Brigadier General Ziaur Rahman for support. Zia expressed his inability to support them. Zia asked them to do what they thought was necessary. They were supported covertly by senior cabinet minister Khondaker Mushtaque Ahmed who was introduced to Rahman by Major Khandaker Abdur Rashid. On 12 August 1975, he discussed the plans with his fellow officers at his wedding anniversary party at the Officers Club, Dhaka. There the officers finalised 15 August 1975 as the day they would launch the coup.
On 14 August 1975, Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman met Captain Abdul Aziz Pasha, Captain Bazlul Huda, Major Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Major Shariful Haque Dalim, Major S.H.M.B Noor Chowdhury, Major Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Major Rashed Chowdhury, and other officers in his office to finalize the plan. According to the plan, Rahman commanded the tanks of the Bengal Lancers. Mujib was killed in his house by Captain Bazlul Huda and Major Noor on 15 August 1975. Immediately after the killing, the officers rendezvoused at the Bangladesh Betar office, and installed Khondakar Mushtaque Ahmed as the new president of Bangladesh. Khondakar Mushtaque called the assassins Surja Santan (the gallant sons) and passed the Indemnity Ordinance which protected the assassins from prosecution.
Rahman was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and held a position of power in the new regime until it was overthrown in a counter-coup by pro-Mujib officers led by Maj. Gen. Khaled Mosharraf, who ousted Khondakar Mushtaque. However, 7 November 1975 coup against Mosharraf by Lt. Col. Abu Taher brought Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman to power. Ziaur Rahman was freed by Major Mohiuddin Ahmed. Ziaur Rahman after assuming power appointed the assassins in the diplomatic corps in foreign posts with the exception of Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman and Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan refused to accept the diplomatic posts. In 1979, the Bangladeshi parliament under Ziaur Rahman's Bangladesh Nationalist Party converted the Indemnity ordinance into an official act of parliament. Farooq-ur-Rahman was dismissed from Bangladesh Army for his role in mutinies in Savar Cantonment and Bogra Cantonment and sent abroad. The assassins were removed from government service after they tried to launch a coup against Ziaur Rahman in 1980.

## 1986 Presidential Election

After the assassination of Ziaur Rahman in 1981, Rahman returned to active politics by founding the Bangladesh Freedom Party and running for the presidency against Lt. Gen. Hussain Muhammad Ershad in 1986. Syed Farooq Rahman representing the Bangladesh Freedom Party had run for presidency against Hussain Muhammad Ershad of the Jatiya Party, and Muhammadullah Hafezzi of the Bangladesh Khilafat Andolan. Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman had obtained 1,202,303 of the total 21,795,337 votes, 4.64% of the total, coming third out of the twelve other Presidential Candidates. The Oxford-trained lawyer, Kamal Hossain, who was Mujib’s law minister, and later foreign minister, told Salil Tripathi, a journalist, “The impunity with which Farooq operated was extraordinary. When he returned to Bangladesh, the government facilitated him and President Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who wanted some candidate to stand against him in the rigged elections. Ershad let Farooq stand to give himself credibility.”

## Trial and execution

In 1996, the Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's daughter, Sheikh Hasina won the general election and became the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Under her party's majority, the Indemnity Act was repealed and a court case initiated over the killing of Mujib and his family. In August 1996 he was arrested by the Bangladesh Police. In 1998, the Dhaka High Court sentenced Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman to death. After the Awami League's defeat in the 2001 general election, the BNP government of Begum Khaleda Zia slowed down the proceedings in the Mujib murder case. In October 2007, he filed an appeal with the Bangladesh Supreme Court. After Sheikh Hasina returned to power in 2009, the court case was restarted. After Rahman's plea for clemency was denied by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, he was executed along with other plotters on 28 January 2010.

## Family life and legacy

Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman was married to Farida Khan, a daughter of S. H. Khan, the younger brother of Abul Kashem Khan a leading industrialist and minister belonging to the politically prominent Khan family of Chittagong. His elder son, Sayed Tariq Rahman is chairman of the Bangladesh Freedom Party founded by him, Tariq lives and is based in Sydney. The vice-chairman of the Bangladesh Freedom Party is his younger son Sayed Zubair Farooq who is a Doctoral graduate in Behavioral Economics and ethical banking from the University of Technology Sydney, chief executive of Unity Grammar College, a Islamic private school in Australia, he is also ministerial financial advisor to Sheikh Mohammed Al-Maktoum.