Chowdhury A. T. M. Masud was a Bangladeshi judge and Chief Election Commissioner of Bangladesh. He had also been the Chairperson of Bangladesh National Heart Foundation.
Masud was born in Sylhet and was educated at the Department of Law, University of Calcutta. [1] From 1945 to 1947, he was the President of All Assam Muslim Students' Federation and was involved in the 1947 Sylhet referendum. [1] He was the office secretary of the Muslim League referendum board in Sylhet. [2]
Masud started his law practice in 1951 in Sylhet, East Pakistan. [1] By 1962, Masud was practicing law in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. [1]
Masud was a judge of Bangladesh High Court in 1982. [3] He was appointed the Chief Election Commissioner of Bangladesh on 17 February 1985 and remained in that position till 17 February 1990. [1] [4] He wrote a non-fiction book titled Reminiscence of Few Decades and Problems of Democracy in Bangladesh in 2005. [5]
Masud died on 23 November 2013 at the National Heart Foundation Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh. [6] His daughter, Salma Masud Chowdhury, is a Justice of Bangladesh High Court. [7]
Sylhet Division is the northeastern division of Bangladesh. It is bordered by the Indian states of Meghalaya, Assam and Tripura to the north, east and south respectively, and by the Bangladeshi divisions of Chittagong to the southwest and Dhaka and Mymensingh to the west. Prior to 1947, it included the subdivision of Karimganj. However, Karimganj was inexplicably severed from Sylhet by the Radcliffe Boundary Commission. According to Niharranjan Ray, it was partly due to a plea from a delegation led by Abdul Matlib Mazumdar.
Abul Fazal Mohammad Ahsanuddin Chowdhury was a Bengali public servant and judge who served as President of Bangladesh from 27 March 1982 to 10 December 1983.
Abdus Sattar was a Bangladeshi statesman. A leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), he served as the President of Bangladesh from 1981 to 1982, and earlier as the Vice President of Bangladesh. A jurist by profession, Sattar held numerous constitutional and political offices in British India, East Pakistan and Bangladesh. He was a cabinet minister, supreme court judge, and chief election commissioner.
The Constitution of Bangladesh, officially the Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh is the supreme law of Bangladesh. The document provides the framework that demarcates the Bangladeshi republic with a unitary, parliamentary democracy, that enshrines fundamental human rights and freedoms, an independent judiciary, democratic local government and a national bureaucracy.
Muhammad Ataul Goni Osmani, was a Bengali military leader. Osmani's career spanned five decades, beginning with service in the British Indian Army in 1939. He fought in the Burma Campaign during World War II. After the partition of India in 1947, he joined the Pakistan Army and served in the East Bengal Regiment, retiring as a colonel in 1967. Osmani joined the Provisional Government of Bangladesh in 1971 as the commander-in-chief of the nascent Bangladesh Forces. Regarded as the founder of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, Osmani retired as a four-star general from the Bangladesh Army in 1972.
Kamal Hossain is a founding leader, lawyer and politician of Bangladesh. He is known as the "father of the Bangladeshi constitution" and regarded as an icon of secular democracy in the Indian subcontinent. Hossain currently heads his own law firm in Dhaka, serves as president of the Gano Forum political party, and advocates for democratic reform. His autobiography Bangladesh: Quest for Freedom and Justice is an important book on Bangladeshi history, particularly regarding the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.
Sylhet, located in north-east Bangladesh, is the divisional capital and one of the four districts in the Sylhet Division.
Abu Sayeed Chowdhury was a jurist and the President of Bangladesh. Besides that, he held the positions of the Chairmen of the United Nations Commission on Human rights, the vice-chancellor of the University of Dhaka, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh and the first Bangladesh High Commissioner to the UK.
United Bengal was a proposal to transform Bengal Province into an undivided, sovereign state at the time of the Partition of India in 1947. It sought to prevent the division of Bengal on religious grounds. The proposed state was to be called the Free State of Bengal. A confessionalist political system was mooted. The proposal was not put up for a vote. The British government proceeded to partition Bengal in accordance with the Mountbatten Plan and Radcliffe Line.
The Sylheti or Sylhetis are an Indo-Aryan ethnocultural group that are associated with the Sylhet region in South Asia, presently divided between the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh, and the Barak Valley of Assam, India. There are sizeable Sylheti populations in North Tripura, as well as in rest of Bangladesh and northeast India.They speak Sylheti, an Eastern Indo-Aryan language which is ambiguously considered as an independent language, or as a dialect of Bengali.
The Constituent Assembly of Bangladesh was the constituent assembly of Bangladesh. It was the country's provisional parliament between 1971 and 1973. In 1972, it drafted and adopted the Constitution of Bangladesh. The assembly was dominated by the Awami League, with a minority being independent lawmakers.
Chowdhury is a title of honour, usually hereditary, originating from the Indian subcontinent. It is an adaption from Sanskrit. During the Mughal rule, it was a title awarded to eminent people, while during British rule, the term was associated with zamindars and social leaders. The common female equivalent was Chowdhurani. Many landlords under the Permanent Settlement carried this surname. Land reforms after the partition of India abolished the permanent settlement. In modern times, the term is a common South Asian surname for both males and females.
The 1947 Sylhet referendum was held in the Sylhet District of the Assam Province of British India to decide whether the district would remain in Undivided Assam and therefore within the post-independence Dominion of India, or leave Assam for East Bengal and consequently join the newly-created Dominion of Pakistan. The referendum's turnout was in favour of joining the Pakistani union; however, the district's Karimganj subdivision remained within the Indian state of Assam.
Dewan Taimur Raja Chowdhury was a Bangladesh Nationalist Party politician, landowner and poet. He was the former member of parliament from Sylhet-7.
Ajmal Ali Choudhury was a Pakistani politician and former Minister of Commerce of Pakistan. He was also a member of the 4th National Assembly of Pakistan. His close relationship with Muhammad Ali Jinnah and contributions during the 1947 Sylhet referendum led to him being known as the Sylhet's Quaid by his supporters. However, he became heavily criticised after supporting Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Abu Ahmad Abdul Hafiz, also known by his daak naam Wakil Mia, was a Bengali lawyer, teacher and politician who was active in the Pakistan Movement and the reincorporation of the Sylhet district into East Bengal.
Nesaruddin Ahmad was a Bengali Islamic scholar, spiritual reformer, educationist and writer. He was the main disciple of Furfura Sharif's Mohammad Abu Bakr Siddique in eastern Bengal. Ahmad was the inaugural Pir of Sarsina, having founded the Sarsina Darbar Sharif and Darussunnat Kamil Madrasa in 1915, one of the largest Islamic institutions in South Bengal and the first major alia madrasah after Calcutta. Ahmad was among the leading Islamic leaders in colonial Barisal, and his influence extended across Bengal. The Nesarabad Upazila of Bangladesh has been named after him.
Abū Naṣr Muḥammad Waḥīd, or simply Abu Nasr Waheed, was a Bangladeshi Islamic scholar, educationist, author and politician. He is best known for his reformations to Islamic education in Bengal, and development of Arabic language education among Bengali Muslims. Wahid also served as the Education Minister of British Assam and a member of the Assam Legislative Assembly.
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