Dr Zoha\\\'s martyrdom recalled

RU Correspondent
RAJSHAHI UNIVERSITY, Feb 17: Dr. Shamsuzzoha was not only a teacher of the Rajshahi University (RU), but also the first intellectual who was martyred in the liberation war of the country.
On February 18, 1969, Prof Shamsuzzoha, the then proctor and a teacher of RU chemistry department, was shot dead at the main entrance of the university by the Pakistani military junta.
Form that day, February 18 became a red-letter day not only in the history of RU but also in the memory of the entire teacher's community of the country.
On this very turbulent day of mass upsurge in 1969, the respectable teacher of the university preferred sacrificing his life to bowing down his head to the injustice of the then autocratic Pakistani rulers.
On that day, Dr. Zoha was requesting two Pak army officers, Captain Hadi and Lt Khadem Shah, not to shoot at the demonstrating students who brought out processions defying Section-144. The agitating students were protesting the murder of Sergeant Zahurul Haque, an accused of Agartala Conspiracy Case, in Pakistani army's custody just three days before.
At one stage of the argument, Lt Khadem ordered a Bangalee combatant to shoot Dr. Zoha. When the soldier refused, Lt Khadem himself shot Zoha with his revolver, and also bayoneted him.
This was Dr. Shamsuzzoha who had to lay his life for the cause of the nation that was in a struggle for democracy at that time.
Shamsuzzoha is considered to be the first martyred intellectual of Bangladesh who embraced martyrdom for the sake of the Bangali nation struggling for freedom from Pakistani oppressors and regime and to uphold democracy, human rights and equality.