Bangladesh: In solemn remembrance of Major General Abul Manzoor, Bir Uttom

Major General Abul Manzoor’s courage endures beyond silence and whose sacrifice history must yet fully honour.

“A hero is one who knows how to hang on for one minute longer.” — Norwegian proverb

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

History is often unkind to its bravest sons. It crowns some with eternal glory while consigning others—equally valiant, equally devoted—to the shadowed margins of memory. Major General Muhammad Abul Manzoor, Bir Uttom (24 February 1940 – 2 June 1981), stands among those tragic figures whose life was forged in courage, whose service was rendered with unwavering patriotism, yet whose legacy was fractured by political intrigue, betrayal, and an unceremonious end. He was a warrior of 1971, a commander of the Mukti Bahini, a decorated freedom fighter—and later, a silenced voice in the tumultuous post-liberation history of Bangladesh.

To speak of Abul Manzoor is to confront a sobering truth: that history, in its unforgiving harshness, does not bestow upon every hero the grace to age in honour, even when he so richly merits lasting reverence long after death. To me, such cruelty of fate and remembrance is wholly unacceptable.

Forged in Fire: A Soldier of the Liberation War

When the Pakistani military unleashed its genocidal onslaught on unarmed Bengalis on the night of 25 March 1971, Abul Manzoor was an officer of the Pakistan Army. Like many Bengali officers of conscience, he faced a moral reckoning. Loyalty to an oppressive state or allegiance to an oppressed people—he chose the latter, fully aware that the price might be death.

Defecting from the Pakistan Army, Abul Manzoor joined the Bangladesh Liberation War, placing his military training, strategic acumen, and life at the service of a newborn nation. He was appointed Commander of Sector 8 of the Mukti Bahini, a region of immense strategic importance covering parts of Jessore, Kushtia, and Khulna—areas fiercely contested and brutally targeted by Pakistani forces and their local collaborators, especially, Jamaat-e-Islami mass-murderers.

Under his command, Sector 8 became a crucible of resistance. Guerrilla warfare, coordinated ambushes, intelligence-driven strikes, and the mobilization of local freedom fighters defined his leadership. His men did not merely fight; they believed. And belief, in a war against overwhelming brutality, was itself a weapon.

For exceptional gallantry and leadership, Abul Manzoor was awarded Bir Uttom, the second-highest gallantry award of Bangladesh. It was recognition earned not through rhetoric but through blood, resolve, and sacrifice.

“Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because it is the quality which guarantees all others.” — Winston S. Churchill

From Liberation to Institution-Building

With independence achieved in December 1971, Bangladesh faced the arduous task of nation-building—particularly the creation of a professional, disciplined, and nationally loyal armed force. Abul Manzoor remained in service, committed to this foundational project.

Over the years, he held several senior command and staff appointments, eventually rising to the position of Chief of General Staff (CGS) of the Bangladesh Army—one of the most influential posts within the military hierarchy. Colleagues and subordinates alike described him as principled, forthright, professionally competent, and fiercely nationalist.

Yet, as Bangladesh’s post-liberation politics grew increasingly unstable—marked by coups, counter-coups, assassinations, and ideological schisms—the armed forces themselves became entangled in the vortex of power struggles. It was within this volatile environment that Abul Manzoor’s fate was sealed.

1981: The Year of Tragedy and Betrayal

The assassination of President Ziaur Rahman on 30 May 1981 in Chittagong ducked the nation into profound shock and instability. In the turbulent and bewildering aftermath, events unfolded with alarming speed and deliberate opacity. Major General Abul Manzoor, then commanding forces in Chittagong, was calculatedly accused of orchestrating a rebellion following Zia’s killing—an accusation engineered by the reprobate military dictator and then Army Chief, General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, a figure repatriated from Pakistan and widely regarded as a die-hard pro-Pakistani operative. That allegation remains deeply contested, morally suspect, and historically unresolved.

What is incontrovertible, however, is this: Abul Manzoor was arrested and summarily executed on 2 June 1981 on the direct orders of General Ershad, without trial, without due process, and without even the most elementary transparency that justice demands. His killing was officially cloaked under the term “encounter”—a chilling euphemism that has since become synonymous with extrajudicial execution.

Thus, a Bir Uttom of the Liberation War—a soldier who had once defied Pakistan at the peril of his life to help birth Bangladesh—was silenced not only by military-political treachery, but by the very state he had helped to create and defend.

“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

An Unanswered Question in National History

More than four decades later, the killing of Major General Abul Manzoor remains one of the darkest, least-accounted-for chapters in Bangladesh’s political and military history. No credible judicial inquiry has brought clarity. No comprehensive national reckoning has restored his honour in proportion to his sacrifice.

Was he a conspirator, as official narratives once hastily suggested? Or was he a convenient scapegoat in a ruthless struggle for power? Why was a decorated freedom fighter denied the most basic legal rights? Why was truth buried alongside his body?

These questions linger not merely as historical curiosities, but as moral indictments of a nation’s failure to protect its heroes from military-political vengeance.

A Hero Without a Monument

Unlike many figures of 1971 whose names are etched into textbooks, cantonments, and ceremonial rhetoric, Abul Manzoor remains conspicuously absent from the pantheon of publicly celebrated heroes. His story is whispered rather than proclaimed; footnoted rather than foregrounded.

And yet, history has a stubborn way of resurfacing inconvenient truths.

“Truth crushed to earth shall rise again.” — William Cullen Bryant

To revisit Abul Manzoor’s life is not to reopen old wounds, but to heal them through honesty. It is to affirm that patriotism does not expire with military and political disfavour, and that gallantry does not lose its worth because power shifts hands.

Concluding Point: Reclaiming a Silenced Legacy

Major General Muhammad Abul Manzoor, Bir Uttom, was a man pure in soul. He was also, undeniably, a true patriot of 1971, a commander who fought for Bangladesh when doing so meant treason to Pakistan and death at any moment. He was a builder of the post-war army, and ultimately, a casualty of Bangladesh’s violent military and political adolescence.

To honour him fully is not to sanctify controversy, but to restore balance to history. Nations mature when they learn to confront their past without fear, acknowledging both glory and guilt.

The name Abul Manzoor deserves to be spoken not in hushed tones, but in clear, courageous remembrance.

For a nation that was born through sacrifice, forgetting a freedom fighter is itself a form of betrayal.

“A nation that forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten.” — Attributed to Calvin Coolidge

Let the ballad of Major General Abul Manzoor finally be sung—not as a footnote of suspicion, but as a chapter of courage, tragedy, and unfinished justice.

Written by Anwar A. Khan 

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