Latest news with #Rafiqul
Time of India
27-04-2025
- Time of India
'I will avenge his death': Armyman dada vows to seek justice for Jhantu Ali's death at Nadia funeral in Kolkata
Wife Sahana,brother Rafiqul mourn at Jhantu Ali's funeral in Nadia's Tehatta TEHATTA (NADIA): An entire village, which came out on Saturday to lay to rest Indian Army jawan Jhantu Ali Shaikh , heard his brother - also a jawan with the country's defence forces in Jammu & Kashmir - vowing revenge for the death. Jhantu - a commando with the 6 Para Forces - died in an encounter with terrorists in J&K's Udhampur on Thursday, two days after the Pahalgam carnage in which Pakistan-backed terrorists killed 26 people, 25 of them tourists. On Saturday, Jhantu's elder brother, Rafiqul, a subedar in an artillery reg-iment also posted in Kashmir, led the procession that carried Jhantu's coffin to the burial ground in Tehatta's Patharghata village. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata "My brother died in the line of duty while trying to neutralise the terrorists who butchered innocent tourists. I will avenge his death," Rafiqul - wearing his Army uniform - said, as hundreds of Muslim and Hindu villagers from Patharghata and beyond heard him in silence. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Invest $200 in Amazon without buying stocks to earn a second salary Marketsall Sign Up Undo Villagers wave National Flag, pay last respects The Indian Army is above all caste and creed. Can anyone say who is Hindu or who is Muslim in the Army? The Indian Army is a place where soldiers from different faiths eat from the same plate; their food is cooked in the same utensil. Come to the Army if you want to see real brotherhood," Rafiqul said. My brother is no more and no one can compensate the loss suffered by his family and children. I am proud that my brother sacrificed his life for the country. You have heard about terrorists identifying Hindus and then killing them. A 10-member team, including my brother, followed intelligence inputs to go to the Dudu-Basantgarh area in Udhampur to eliminate the same terrorists," he told the villagers. Jhantu served in the Indian Army for 14 years. Hundreds of villagers, waving the Tricolour, lined the route from Jhantu and Rafiqul's home to the burial ground and expressed outrage at the Pahalgam massacre . A military vehicle - decked with Jhantu's photographs, flowers and wreaths - rolled into Patharghata at 8 a.m. bearing Jhantu's National Flag-draped coffin.
The Guardian
11-04-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Rafiqul Alam obituary
My father, Rafiqul Alam, who has died aged 97, became a history teacher in Essex after moving to the UK from the Indian subcontinent in the early 1960s. Later he taught children in London whose first language was not English, before returning for a decade to his homeland to set up and run a primary school in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Rafiqul was born in Narayanganj, in what was then the British Raj but is now Bangladesh, to Abdul Shamsuzzoha, a teacher and schools inspector, and his wife, Shamsunnissa Begum. Soon after leaving Nabakumar high school in Dhaka, and still a teenager, on a visit to Kolkata he witnessed starvation caused by the Bengal famine. Then came communal riots after partition, and in 1947 he joined the Communist party, a move that saw him jailed without charge on three occasions by the government of the newly formed territory of East Pakistan. He and his comrades protested via a hunger strike and were force fed by prison staff. Rafiqul married Sultana Banu in 1953, became a pharmaceuticals salesman, tried his hand at exporting fish and making furniture, and then went to Dhaka University, where he gained a history degree followed by a master's. That allowed him to find a civil service job at the Ministry for Social Welfare in Karachi until, in 1961, he moved to London to take an MPhil at the School of Oriental and African Studies (now Soas University of London), while working for British Rail. His wife and young family joined him in 1962, and on the completion of his studies in 1965, he taught history at St Edward's comprehensive school in Romford, Essex, where he introduced social studies, British constitution and sociology into the curriculum. In 1979 he left for Nigeria to take a job training teachers there, and on his return in 1981, after a period of unemployment, he was appointed by the London borough of Waltham Forest's English language service to teach children whose first language was not English. In 1988 he went back to Bangladesh to look after his elderly father and to fulfil his dream of starting a school for primary children there, establishing and running his own Redland school in Dhaka for the next decade. On his retirement he moved back to the UK, where he took on part-time tutoring work with primary schoolchildren in Hertfordshire. He only stopped teaching altogether around 2009 to care for Sultana, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. She died in 2018. In 2019 Rafiqul embarked on his last educational adventure when he took part in the intergenerational dementia project at Downshall primary school in east London, which brings together older adults and young children to improve the quality of life and opportunities for both. He is survived by three children, Rita, Apu and me, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
