News Flash
By Md Mamun Islam
RANGPUR, April 23, 2025 (BSS) – A very simple farmer Md Somes Uddin, 65, who recited the Holy Quran every day after Fajr prayers, was killed while fleeing from a fierce police chase due to intense fear of arrest on August 2, 2024.
The police were after him for taking a stance against the fascist regime of Sheikh Hasina and participating in the anti-discrimination student-people movement since the beginning of July.
Shaheed Somes Uddin was a very religious and happy man. He managed his lower-middle-class farming family with the crops he cultivated on his tiny cropland and the money he earned from his grocery shop at home.
He loved to pray five-time daily obligatory prayers being present in the front row at the Nazirerhat Jam-e-Mosque near his home.
This kind and cheerful man was a much-loved person to everyone in his village Radhakrishnapur Moulavipara and the adjacent Nazirerhat Bazaar in Ward No. 12 of the city's Hajirhat Metropolitan Police Station.
Although Somes Uddin was not very educated and cultivated various crops on only 40 decimals of his arable land, he was still a politically conscious citizen.
In his spare time, he used to sell various daily necessities from a small grocery shop attached to his house located along the Nazirerhat-Shyampur Road.
He was concerned about the horrors of Sheikh Hasina's fascist regime and the torture, repression, killing of innocent people, enforced disappearances, human rights violations, looting of public funds, and smuggling of money abroad.
However, he never lost hope and always believed that Almighty Allah, according to His own plan, would one day overthrow the fascist regime and restore good days to ensure welfare of common people.
Somes Uddin, who had boundless faith in Allah Almighty, used to participate in the anti-discrimination student movement processions frequently from the very beginning of the July Movement aiming to free the nation from fascism.
He is the father of one daughter and one son. His wife Most Amena Begum, 55, is a housewife and a highly respected religious woman in their village.
His only son Md Ashiqur Rahman, 25, completed diploma course in Textile Engineering from Image Institute of Textile Engineering, Rangpur in 2018.
The same year, Ashiqur joined the Garment Product Quality Department of Supreme Stitch Limited, a garment factory in Gazipur.
He married Mst Sharmin Akhter, 21, daughter of a Gazipur businessman Md. Fakhruddin, in 2019.
The couple has a three-year-old daughter, Ayesha Siddiqa, and they lived in a rented house in Gazipur until Somes Uddin's martyrdom day.
Somes Uddin's only daughter Mst Shirina Khatun, 35, is married to businessman Majidul Islam Milon, 40, of Parbatipur upazila of Dinajpur. She lives there with her family.
Talking to BSS at their home in Radhakrishnapur Moulvipara village, his wife Amena Begum, son Ashiqur Rahman, daughter-in-law Sharmin Akhter and local people couldn’t control their emotions while narrating the tragic story of Somes Uddin's martyrdom.
Amena Begum said that like everyday, her husband offered Fajr prayers at nearby Nazirerhat Jam-e-Mosque in the morning on August 2. It was Friday.
Then, he recited the holy Quran after returning home on August 2, only three days ahead of the fall of fascist Hasina’s fascist regime.
“I had long become accustomed to hearing his wonderful Quran recitation in his sweet voice daily. I can no longer hear his Quran recitation as he is now in heaven after his martyrdom,” she said.
The couple had breakfast together with rice cooked in the morning and fish curry cooked the night before.
Then, Somes Uddin hired two workers to work on the farmland and opened his grocery store.
"Around 11 am, Somesh Uddin called his son Ashiqur, who was working in Gazipur, on his mobile phone. At that time, he asked Ashiqur to give his mobile phone to his daughter Ayesha," she said.
At that time, Somes Uddin spoke to his granddaughter Ayesha for two minutes and gave the phone to Amena Begum. Ayesha talked to her grandmother for 20 minutes and again wanted to talk to her grandfather.
“Somes Uddin was very busy at that time because he was handling the groceries brought to his shop from the wholesale market. Still, he spoke to Ayesha for 10 minutes,” said Amena Begum, crying.
While talking that day, Ayesha repeatedly asked her grandfather to bring her from Gazipur to her grandfather's house in Rangpur.
Ayesha had spoken to her grandfather many times in the past, but she had never asked him to bring her to Rangpur like this.
"Somes Uddin and Ayesha would talk often whenever he got some time. Perhaps, Almighty Allah gave Ayesha and her grandfather time to talk for another 10 minutes on his martyrdom day," said Amena Begum.
Recalling his father’s memory, Ashiqur said his father couldn’t talk to him due to his busy schedule at the grocery shop that day.
In their two minutes talk that day, his father told him that he was very busy at his grocery shop and will talk to him later after offering the Juma prayers.
“But what my father told me that day was the last conversation between us. I didn’t understand it at the time. May Almighty Allah grant us all the fortune of talking to my father in Jannatul Ferdous,” said a tearful Ashiqur.
Amena Begum said that after taking a bath and performing ablution at home at noon, she went to the Nazirerhat Jam-e-Mosque, about 650 meters north of their home, to offer Friday prayers.
"After returning from the mosque, he opened the grocery store and started talking to some passersby. In this way, he spent a lot of time chatting with passersby. That day, before Asr prayers, he had lunch with fried ‘Puthi’ fish," she said.
After paying the daily wages of the farm workers hired from his shop, he went to the mosque, prayed the afternoon prayer, returned, and sat down in the shop again.
Then, he prayed the Maghrib prayer in the shop and started running the shop again there that day.
“At approximately 6:45 in the evening, about 5/6 police officers on motorcycles arrived suddenly and stopped in front of our shop attached to our house to arrest my husband,” said Amena Begum.
Somes Uddin was very afraid of being arrested by the police after hearing about the nationwide killings and torture of student-public by the police.
“Seeing no other option, my husband entered our bedroom through the back door of the shop to avoid arrest by the police and ran backwards to escape outside. The police then started searching for my husband in and around the house,” she said.
At one point after six to eight minutes, Somes Uddin came out of hiding to find out the situation and stood on the Nazirerhat-Shyampur road, 60/70 meters south of the house.
“When the police saw my husband, they chased him at high speed. My husband also ran to save himself and suddenly fell over on the road,” Amena Begum said.
At that moment, a battery-powered auto-rickshaw plying on the road stopped there, and its driver and passengers called out to the people around.
"Locals rushed to the spot and found my husband in an unconscious state. They brought him to our house. We immediately took him to the city's Prime Medical College Hospital in the same auto-rickshaw," she said.
"The hospital doctor on duty declared my husband dead at 7:50 pm, saying that he died on the spot near our house due to intense fear after the terrible police chase," she said, breaking down in tears.
When the body was brought home from the hospital at 8:30 pm, locals crowded the house to see their beloved Somes Uddin, who had already become a martyr.
Ashiqur Rahman said he received the news of his father's martyrdom in Gazipur from a phone call of a relative at around 8 pm. It was raining heavily outside then.
“I somehow came to the bus ticket counter at Gazipur city on the Dhaka-Rangpur highway with my wife Sharmin Akhter and daughter Ayesha Siddiqa,” he said.
Later, Ashiqur Rahman started his journey from Gazipur to Rangpur in a night coach of Nabil Paribahan at 10 pm and reached home with his family in the morning before Fajr prayers.
“Hundreds of people attended my father’s namaz-e-janaza held at Nazirerhat Jam-e-Mosque premises at 9 am on August 3. He was laid to eternal rest at the local Baganbari Graveyard at Nazirerhat Bazar at 10 am,” Ashiqur Rahman said.
“After my father's martyrdom, I quit my job to live in my ancestral home with my mother, wife and daughter,” Ashiqur said, and urged everyone to pray for his father.
Amena Begum said, “Although it is very difficult without my husband Somes Uddin, I am still proud to be the widow of a martyred . . . .”
Local villager and madrasa teacher Md. Golam Mostafa said, "Somes Uddin was a very gentle, humble and religious person in the area. He never spoke loudly. The local people will remember him with due respect and honor."
