Banu joined Farida Bidyatan school as the headmistress in 1964. She joined the Moscow aligned fraction of the National Awami Party in 1967. After Dr. Mohammad Shamsuzzoha was killed in Rajshahi University, she presided over a protest in Comilla in 1969. During the Bangladesh Liberation War she worked in the refugee camps in Salt Lake city and Agartala. Her daughter, Shirin Banu, fought in the Bangladesh Liberation war dressed as a man.