Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman
Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman was an army officer and politician in Bangladesh, better known as Colonel Farooq throughout the country. He was the leader and architect of the revolt by some disgruntled army personnel of the then-nascent Bangladesh to oust Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from power, a main figure in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and the country's first President. Farooq and other organizers of the coup installed Khandakar Mostaq Ahmad in power under the premise that he would rule in accordance to Islamic law, though this premise was later broken by Mostaq. He was 2IC of the 1st Bengal Lancers Regiment and a major of the Bangladesh Army at the time of the coup whereupon he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. Farooq would found the Bangladesh Freedom Party in 1981 with his allies and go on to run for president against Hussain Muhammad Ershad in 1986, though the election was boycotted by other major parties. Upon the return of to power of the Bangladesh Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina in the late 1990s, Farooq was arrested and convicted, leading to his execution on 28 January 2010, along other coup members such as Bazlul Huda and Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan.
Birth and Family background
Dewan Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman was born on 9 August 1946 into an aristocratic family in Dhaka to Sayed Ataur Rahman and Mahmuda Khatun. His father, Sayed Ataur Rahman, was a physician who was a member of the Indian Medical Service and then successively the Pakistan Army Medical Corps after the Partition of the Subcontinent, he was awarded with the military rank of Major for his years of service. He belonged to a prominent family of Sufi heritage, the Dewan family of Marma-Malikpur in Barshail Union, Naogaon Sadar, one of the Pir families of the Rajshahi region. The progenitor of the family was an Arab Sayyid preacher known as Zinda Pir Hazrat Shukr Ali Dewan, who had arrived from Yemen. Farooq was a ninth generation descendant of him. Farooq's paternal grandfather Sayed Ishratullah Dewan, was the Inspector of Naogaon Sadar Police Station during British India and was also later a Sufi figure in Naogaon, called by the title Zinda Pir by his followers.Farooq's mother was Mahmuda Khatun, who belongs to a wealthy and well-connected zamindar family in Jamalpur District in Mymensingh, the family claims descent from Turkish mercenaries under the Mughal emperors. Farooq's maternal grandfather, Abdul Latif Khan was also a member of the British Indian police service like his paternal grandfather. The youngest brother of his mother, Mahmuda Khatun, was the pioneer of the export-oriented ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh, Noorul Quader Khan. From his maternal family's relations, Farooq was related to several reputed figures in the politics and civil service of Bengal at the time including Khaled Mosharraf who served as the fourth Chief of Army Staff of Bangladesh, Rashed Mosharraf who was Member of Parliament for the Jamalpur-2 constituency, Ataur Rahman Khan who was the chief minister of East Pakistan and Azizur Rahman Mallick, the famed historian and educationist, and Syed Nazrul Islam, acting president of Bangladesh during the 1971 liberation war.
Farooq was the oldest child and only son of his parents, he had two younger sisters. One of these sisters, Yasmin Rahman would be a pioneering pilot of Bangladesh and the first female commander of Biman Airlines.
Early Life and Schooling
Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman's schooling days were largely centred upon the postings of his father, who at the time was serving as an army doctor for the Pakistan Army, thus leading to Farooq attending several different schools in both West Pakistan and East Pakistan. Reflective of the location of his father's postings, Farooq had changed schools, a total of six times within thirteen years. He started off his primary education in the year of 1952, aged six at the Fatima Jinnah Girls School in Comilla, about which Farooq joked as being his ‘one and only time in a convent.’ He also then attended Army Burn Hall College in Abbottabad, a selective school administered by the Pakistan Army Education Corps. He would switch to St. Joseph High School in Dhaka, then Station Road School in Rawalpindi where the daughter of the second President of Pakistan, Ayub Khan was also studying. He also studied at St. Francis’ Grammar School in Quetta, and Adamjee Cantonment College in Dhaka where he graduated with his Higher Secondary Certificate as a science student in 1964, obtaining a second-class. He would finish his academic education at a college at Kohat where he completed at crash-course in Mathematics. Farooq had a passion for aviation since a young age, this led him to gaining a solo-pilot licence aged seventeen, afterwards, he attempted to join the Pakistan Airforce but was unsuccessful at doing so. Farooq also had enthusiasm for gymnastics in his youth, he had earned a color in East Pakistan Gymnastics in 1964. Seeing his deep interest in aircraft, his parents had him admitted for a bachelor's degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Bristol University in the United Kingdom for the 1966 intake.However, Farooq being caught up in the vehement emotions of patriotism, present in much of those of his age during the nascent post-British era in the Indian Subcontinent, was not deterred by his rejection by the Pakistan Airforce, had still desired to join the Pakistan army. This desire intensified after hostility between Pakistan and India had emerged after political and armed conflict known as Operation Desert Hawk in the Great Rann of Kutch. Farooq while on his usual path to college in Kohat, had decided to take a different turn, diverting to the Inter-services Selection Board office where he had volunteered to receive a commission from the Pakistan army recruitment authorities. He was a granted a commission in a call by the authorities around a week later, he had initially faced opposition in following his inner-aspirations from his mother who did not want to lose her only son to army-service, yet Farooq was finally allowed by his parents to join the army after his father had given his consent. Farooq would later claim that he was the first second-generation Bengali officer in the Pakistan army since his father had too served as a medical officer.
Early Military Career (pre-Independence of Bangladesh)
Farooq after receiving parental permission, ended up at the Pakistan Military Academy in Risalpur in the year of 1966, where he had quickly distinguished himself from other cadets who had volunteered for a commission by becoming appointed to the position of battalion sergeant major which had allowed him to have some initial level of seniority amongst his fellow starting cadets. He eventually had graduated from the Pakistan Military Academy ranking as fourth out of two hundred and ninety-seven cadets and was awarded with being able to choose between modes of service in the army. He was recommended by then-Major Ziaur Rahman and his maternal uncle, then-Major Khaled Mosharraf, who were working as instructors in the Pakistan Military Academy, that he should join the Bengal Regiment troops. Farooq however respectfully turned down these suggestions, saying that he did not desire to do “footslogging in the army”, choosing to join the armoured corps instead, resulting in his appointment to the 13th Lancers of the Pakistan Army, where he started off as a second lieutenant, the most junior rank given to commissioned officers starting off their careers as a probation.Farooq would later be transferred into the 31st Cavalry based in Sialkot in the later months of 1970 being aged twenty-four, he would become a Captain and acting squadron commander of the ‘Charlie Squadron’ also known as the C-Squadron which was equipped with M36B2 Tank Destroyers and thus became associated with the command-chain of the armoured corps in the Pakistan Army. This success and career-progression of Farooq was to be attributed with him topping his tactical armour course with a B+, his advanced radio training course with an A+ and his basic armour-officer course with a B+. In October 1970, Farooq received a letter from his commanding officer that he had been seconded to Abu Dhabi in the Trucial States in Arabia where the Pakistan government had made a pact that their armed forces will be assisting in the training and servicing the forces of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan. In Abu Dhabi, Farooq became a squadron commander in the Abu Dhabi Armoured Regiment based near the port of Jabal Dhanna during 1971 when political tension between Western and Eastern factions of Pakistan had become catalysed at an increasing rate.
Farooq lived a relaxed life during his tenure as a military officer in the Trucial States, military duties which were his sole purpose and work upon his secondment by the Pakistan Army authorities only took up a fraction of his time. He would spend the rest of his time pursuing his passion for military history and tactics by reading volumes of such-related texts, he would also be entertained by driving fast cars, he had purchased an Opel Commodore GS which he would “tear along the desert roads at a hundred miles per hour.” One day in the middle of June in 1971, as he was spending time in the British officers’ dining, he encountered a bundle of newspapers, amongst them was the Sunday Times which contained an excerpt by Anthony Mascarenhas which detailed the genocide that the Pakistani forces, predominately composed of Punjabis and Pashtuns, were committing against ethnic Bengali civilians in then-East Pakistan after the general electoral victory of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of the Awami League, based in then-East Pakistan over Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of the Peoples’ Party, based in then-West Pakistan. After reading this Farooq after a moment of deep thought, decided he could no longer serve in the Pakistan Army, he left Dubai Airport going towards London, eventually reaching Bengal. He would then become involved in the Bangladesh Liberation War when it was in its final phase in which he was involved in forming and by de facto led the 1st Bengal Lancers, Bangladesh's first armoured regiment and its only one in its nascent era. He was also the 12th commander of the East Bengal Regiment. After the liberation war, Farooq was raised from Captain to the rank of Major.