Lieutenant General Ziaur Rahman, Bir Uttam, Hilal-i-Jurat (Bengali: জিয়াউর রহমান Ziaur Rôhman) (January 19, 1936 – May 30, 1981) was a charismatic Bangladeshi war hero, politician and statesman. He was the President of Bangladesh from 1976 until 1981 and founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of the two largest political parties in the country. His widow, Begum Khaleda Zia, has been Prime Minister of Bangladesh three times and is cu...
more
Lieutenant General Ziaur Rahman, Bir Uttam, Hilal-i-Jurat (Bengali: জিয়াউর রহমান Ziaur Rôhman) (January 19, 1936 – May 30, 1981) was a charismatic Bangladeshi war hero, politician and statesman. He was the President of Bangladesh from 1976 until 1981 and founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of the two largest political parties in the country. His widow, Begum Khaleda Zia, has been Prime Minister of Bangladesh three times and is currently the Leader of Opposition in the Jatiya Sangsad (Bangladeshi parliament). He is popularly known as Shaheed Zia, meaning martyred Zia, in reference to his assassination in 1981.
A Major in the Pakistan Army, Zia's unit (2/5 East Bengal Regiment) took control of the Kalurghat radio station in Chittagong at the onset of the Bangladesh Liberation War and on behalf of Bengali nationalist leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, made the most widely transmitted declaration of independence of Bangladesh which was the third and last in a series of such...
less
