Syed Faruque Rahman

Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman (; better known as Colonel Farooq; 9 August 1946 – 28 January 2010) was an army officer and politician in Bangladesh. He was the leader and architect of the revolt by some disgruntled army personnel of the then-nascent Bangladesh to oust Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from power, a main figure in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and the country's first President. Farooq and other organizers of the coup d'état installed Khandakar Mostaq Ahmad in power under the premise that he would rule in accordance to Islamic law, though this premise was later broken by Mostaq. He was 2IC of the 1st Bengal Lancers Regiment and a major of the Bangladesh Army at the time of the coup whereupon he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. Farooq would found the Bangladesh Freedom Party in 1981 with his allies and go on to run for president against Hussain Muhammad Ershad in 1986, though the election was boycotted by other major parties. His father, Sayed Ataur Rahman, was a physician who was a member of the Indian Medical Service and then successively the Pakistan Army Medical Corps after the Partition of the Subcontinent, he was awarded with the military rank of Major for his years of service. He belonged to a prominent family of Sufi heritage, the Dewan family of Marma-Malikpur in Barshail Union, Naogaon Sadar, one of the Pir families of the Rajshahi region. The progenitor of the family was Sayyid Ali Al-Aydarus, a Hadhrami missionary known to the local populace by the appellation Zinda Pir, meaning living saint, due to him being known for his fiery temperament. The youngest brother of his mother, Mahmuda Khatun, was the pioneer of the export-oriented ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh, Noorul Quader Khan.

Farooq was the oldest child and only son of his parents, he had two younger sisters. One of these sisters, Yasmin Rahman would be a pioneering pilot of Bangladesh and the first female commander of Biman Airlines. Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman's schooling days were largely centred upon the postings of his father, who at the time was serving as an army doctor for the Pakistan Army, thus leading to Farooq attending several different schools in both West Pakistan and East Pakistan. This desire intensified after hostility between Pakistan and India had emerged after political and armed conflict known as Operation Desert Hawk in the Great Rann of Kutch. Farooq while on his usual path to college in Kohat, had decided to take a different turn, diverting to the Inter-services Selection Board office where he had volunteered to receive a commission from the Pakistan army recruitment authorities. He was a granted a commission in a call by the authorities around a week later, he had initially faced opposition in following his inner-aspirations from his mother who did not want to lose her only son to army-service, yet Farooq was finally allowed by his parents to join the army after his father had given his consent. Farooq would later claim that he was the first second-generation Bengali officer in the Pakistan army since his father had too served as a medical officer. At this point of time, Farooq had been pleased to be thinking that Mujib was taking responsibility and care for the day-to-day life of civilians and was allowing the army which he had initially sidelined after the liberation war, to help him in doing so. Near the roundabout on Narayanganj Road, Farooq had arrested a twenty-year-old bandit who affiliated himself with the Awami League, the had openly confessed to killing twenty-one people, upon asking the bandit why he did it, the bandit replied that his chief ordered him to do so, the chief being Mujib himself. Other officers part of the Bravo Squadron were reporting similar cases, whenever they arrested any prominent Awami League member and took them to the police station, there would be a phone call from Dhaka, and they would allow to walk free. Farooq would later say about this operation, 'It meant that we were supposed to root out corruption and malpractices, but we were supposed to stop short of the Awami League. The whole thing was a damn farce.' Immediately after the killing, the officers rendezvoused at the Bangladesh Betar office, Khondakar Mushtaque called the assassins Shurjo Shontan (the gallant sons) and passed the Indemnity Ordinance, which protected the assassins from prosecution.

Rahman was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and held a position of power in the new regime until it was overthrown in a counter-coup by pro-Mujib officers led by Maj. Gen. Khaled Mosharraf, who ousted Khondakar Mushtaque. However, the 7 November 1975 coup against Mosharraf by Lt. Col. Abu Taher brought Maj. Gen. Ziaur Rahman to power. Ziaur Rahman was freed by Major Mohiuddin Ahmed. Ziaur Rahman, after assuming power, appointed the assassins in the diplomatic corps in foreign posts with the exception of Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman and Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan who refused to accept the diplomatic posts. In August 1996, he was arrested by the Bangladesh Police. In 1998, the Dhaka High Court sentenced Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman to death. After the Awami League's defeat in the 2001 general election, the BNP government of Begum Khaleda Zia slowed down the proceedings in the Mujib murder case. In October 2007, he filed an appeal with the Bangladesh Supreme Court. After Sheikh Hasina returned to power in 2009, the court case was restarted. He was executed along with other plotters on 28 January 2010.

Family life and legacy Sayed Farooq-ur-Rahman was married to Farida Khan, a daughter of S. H. Khan, the younger brother of Abul Kashem Khan, a leading industrialist and minister belonging to the politically prominent Khan family of Chittagong.

Farooq had a passion for flying planes, reading books on military history and tactics and driving fast cars.