Bir Sreshtha Matiur Rahman’s 54th death anniversary Wednesday
Wednesday marks the 54th death anniversary of Bir Sreshtha Matiur Rahman, a heroic flight lieutenant who sacrificed his life during the 1971 Liberation War and was posthumously awarded Bangladesh’s highest gallantry honor.
On this day in 1971, Matiur Rahman attempted to bring a T-33 training aircraft from the Masroor Airbase in Karachi, Pakistan, along with trainee Rashid Minhas. The aircraft crashed in Thatta, around 35 miles from the Indian border, and his body was later found intact about half a mile from the crash site.
Born on November 29, 1941, at his home on Aga Sadek Road in Dhaka, Matiur hailed from Ramnogor village in Raipura upazila of Narsingdi. He began his education at Dhaka Collegiate School before enrolling at the PAF Public School in Sargodha.
In 1961, he joined the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), and in 1963, he was commissioned as a pilot officer from PAF College, Risalpur. After commissioning, he was posted as a General Duty Pilot in No. 2 Squadron at Mauripur Airbase (now Masroor) in Karachi, where he completed a conversion course on the T-33 jet aircraft.
He was also the only Bengali pilot to participate in an air show in Peshawar held in honor of Iranian Queen Farah Diba.
For his extraordinary bravery during the Liberation War, the Government of Bangladesh posthumously awarded Matiur Rahman the nation’s highest gallantry award, Bir Sreshtha. The Pakistani government had buried his body at the Class-IV cemetery of Masroor Airbase in Karachi.
On June 24, 2006, his remains were brought back to Bangladesh and reburied with full state honours on June 25 at the Martyred Intellectuals Graveyard in Dhaka.
