Photographer Shahidul Alam got the Ekushey Padak this year for his coordination skills during the July riots and campaigns against the Awami League government for years.
He runs the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, formerly Drik, at Panthapath. Here, he used to run a photo studio, which brought him fame and money. He was also an organiser of the World Press Photo.
He became vocal against the Awami League government after the initiation of the trial of the 1971 war criminals.
Shahidul was one of the 23 citizens who gave a statement in 2012 against the International Crimes Tribunal for British journalist David Bergman, who worked as a lobbyist for Jamaat. Bergman tried his best to save the war criminals. Shahidul’s wife, Rehnuma Ahmed, a former teacher at Jahangirnagar University, also gave a statement in favour of Bergman.
As a filmmaker, Shahidul also tried to promote General Ziaur Rahman as the announcer of Bangladeshโs independence, instead of Bangabandhu, by adding fake voices. He was indebted to Zia for allowing his maternal uncle, Abdus Sabur Khan, to resume politics after the assassination of Bangabandhu.
Shahidul and his wife, Rehnuma Ahmed, had maintained several groups and noted individuals, including Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Chhatra Shibir, AB Party, ultra-leftist parties, fraud Farhad Mazhar, David Bergman and his wife Barrister Sara Hossain, Prof Anu Muhammad, private and public university teachers, Islamist student gangs, NGO leaders, newspaper editors and senior journalists, and embassies, among others, since 2018.
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During the 2018 safe road movement, he went to the street to instigate the student leadership and spoke to Al Jazeera, falsely claiming that it was an uprising against the governmentโs misrule, corruption, disappearance and oppression against dissent. For this reason, a case was filed against him.
In fact, it was a movement initiated by Chhatra Shibir and its disguised wing, Gono Odhikar Parishad, as a sequel to the Dhaka University-based anti-quota movement.
The same year, Shahidul became a key player in the formation of Amar Bangladesh (AB) Party, which was a brainchild of former Jamaat leader Barrister Abdur Razzaq. It was floated as a camouflage because of the eroding image of Jamaat.
After Jamaat captured power with the help of the army and the anti-Awami League clique, Shahidul surfaced as a major player in the interim government. He started campaigning in broad daylight in favour of Gaza, but with the funds of Jewish elements.
Soon, he mediated some crucial meetings between Muhammad Yunus and US deep state actor Alex Soros, a US-based Jewish, in Dhaka and New York to celebrate the fall of the Awami League government.
Involvement with Pakistani elements
Shahidulโs mother, Quazi Anwara Mansur, was the headmistress of Agrani Girlsโ School and a collaborator of the Pakistani Army during the 1971 Liberation War. She is the brother of the infamous Razakar Abdus Sabur Khan.
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During the war, Major General Khaled Musharraf was the commander of Sector 2 and the leader of โKโ Force. Shahidul Alam’s mother kept his two daughters locked in her house. When the freedom fighters went there to free the children, she tried to call the army personnel. At that time, the freedom fighters shot blank fires.
There is a detailed description of this incident in Shahid Janani Jahanara Imam’s book Ekatterer Dinguli (p: 230-231). The incident is described as follows:
“In the middle of April, Badal took Khaled Musharraf’s wife Ruby and his mother from Dhaka and delivered them to Khaled with great difficulty…but the two girls remained in Dhaka. The girls were at the house of Mahmud, who was a friend of Ruby’s brother Dipu. The Pakistani Army captured Dipu and the girls. Then the military left the two girls in the custody of Anwara Mansur.
โFor the crime of allowing Khaled Musharraf’s wife to leave Dhaka, the military announced rewards for Badal. However, after a few days, he came to Dhaka again. Now his task was to take Khaled’s daughters to their parents. It was a very tough job. Anwara Mansur’s house is in a three-storey flat in the ‘Nashemon’ government building on Elephant Road. It was not an easy task to remove two children from there.
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โBadal’s partner in this work is Badi, Kazi, Swapan and Chullu. Chullu was waiting in the car while the others went up to the third floor. But they could not bring both girls. At one point, during Anwar Mansur’s barrage, Swapan saw one person moving towards the telephone and fired blank shots. Anwara Mansur was hit by a Stengun on her head. Khaled Musharrafโs elder girl, Baby, knew Badal, but the younger one did not. Mansur sat clutching the younger girl, Rupan. After that, Badal and others did not think it was safe to stay there any longer.
โBadal picked up Baby and came down with his companions. They saw people gathering near the car. They quickly got into the car and disappeared. They did not stop anywhere. At Gopibagh, Chullu dropped them at a place. Badal and Kazi went through Maniknagar via Daudkandi and passed many obstacles on the way to reach Khaled Musharraf’s camp with his elder girl.โ
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