Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir

Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir (born 01 Mar 1942) is a Bangladeshi politician. He became the Member of Parliament for Chandpur-1 in 2008, being re-elected in 2014 and 2018,[1] and was Minister of Home Affairs from 2011 to 2013.[2][3] He is also a prominent economist, civil servant, and writer in Bangladesh.

Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir
মহিউদ্দীন খান আলমগীর
Alamgir in May 2013
Personal details
Born (1942-03-01) 1 March 1942
NationalityBangladeshi
Political partyBangladesh Awami League
ChildrenJalal Alamgir
Alma materDhaka College
University of Dhaka
Boston University

He taught at the university until 1965. Joining the civil service that year, he served in numerous positions, for a total of 32 years. He held several positions with the Finance Ministry, in addition to regional posts. Beginning in the late 1990s, he was appointed to political positions when the Awami League was in power. He was detained without charges and tortured during 2002. An international effort helped obtain his release. He was arrested, charged and convicted in 2007 under a military caretaker government, and imprisoned until October 2008. In addition to writing and publishing development economics textbooks and numerous articles on this topic, Alamgir published his memoir My Days in Jail (2003), which sold out three editions through the following year.

Early life

Alamgir was born in 1942 in Kachua, Chandpur. completed his master's in economics from the University of Dhaka. Later he earned his master's and Ph.D. in development economics from Boston University.[4]

Career

Alamgir started his career joining the faculty of the Department of Economics at the University of Dhaka in 1962.[4]In 1965 Alamgir joined the Civil Service of Pakistan. Among other posts prior to the independence of Bangladesh, he served as the subdivisional officer at Naogaon. He was serving the Pakistani government as deputy commissioner of Mymensingh when the 1971 war of liberation broke out.[5]

During Awami League rule in 1997, Alamgir was invited to join the cabinet as the State Minister for Planning. He also served stints in charge of the Civil Aviation Ministry and the Science and Technology Ministry. He was the initiator of the Fifth Five-Year Plan, which shaped Bangladesh's development policy from 1997 to 2002.

On 13 September 2012, during the administration of Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League, Alamgir accepted a ministerial post.[6]

Imprisonment and torture

After BNP was returned to power in 2001, the party sought revenge for Alamgir's role in causing it to lose power in 1996.[7][8] The government arrested Alamgir in 2002, detaining him without charges. He was tortured while in police custody. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the groups that fought for his release, Alamgir later reported in court that

"every evening at midnight, the police would enter his cell and blindfold him. He was taken to a separate room where masked men interrogated and tortured him. They beat him with lathi (bamboo sticks) and glass bottles filled with water. He reported that he was beaten severely on his buttocks, feet and other muscular parts of his body, and was sodomized with the bottle. In addition, he was denied freshwater and his diabetes medicine. He reported that the police demanded that he sign a typed document. When he refused to sign, they continued to beat him."[9]

A widespread international campaign pressured the government to stop the torture and to release Alamgir. Prominent politicians, such as United States Senator Edward Kennedy, United States Representative Frank Pallone, Jr., and others urged the government to release him. Professional and human rights organisations also pushed for his release, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Amnesty International, Asian Human Rights Commission, Committee of Concerned Scientists, New York Academy of Sciences, Organisation mondiale contre la torture (World Organisation Against Torture), 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Winners Physicians for Human Rights, Scholars at Risk, and South Asia Forum for Human Rights. Thousands of individuals from around the world wrote letters to the government about his case.[10][11]

The High Court disputed the government's rationale for the former minister's detention without charge; in an unprecedented step, the Court issued an ultimatum to the government, demanding that it release Alamgir or risk having the High Court free him by force. The government released Alamgir on 18 September 2002, an hour before expiration of the court-ordered deadline. In December 2002 the BNP government filed a sedition case against Alamgir for his role in a widespread protest in 1996 against the elections of the previous year.[12]

Re-imprisonment and release

On 4 February 2007, Alamgir was arrested from his home by civil and military police; the government had called a state of emergency in Bangladesh. Eventually the government charged him with corruption based on a wealth statement that he was forced to write while in jail and without access to lawyers or any documents.[13] During the trial in July 2007, seven prominent persons, including well-known economists of Bangladesh and the United States, testified to his honesty.[14] The summary tribunal set up by the military-led caretaker government convicted him of graft and sentenced him to 13 years imprisonment.[15] All in all, the government filed six cases against Alamgir between February 2007 and October 2008.[16]

On 21 October 2008, Alamgir was released on bail after being held in prison for 20 months by the military-backed caretaker government.[17] In December 2008, the Awami League coalition won two-thirds of the seats in Parliament; Alamgir was among those elected while he was still on bail.

As a result of an appeal, on 13 July 2009, the High Court overturned Alamgir's conviction and sentence.[18]

Controversy

He faced controversy when he became the chairman of The Farmers Bank Limited while he was a government minister. Previous ministers resigned from their post to avoid conflicts of interest. When Bangladesh bank fined his bank, he as the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the public accounts asked Comptroller and Auditor General to conduct a special audit on Bangladesh Bank.[19]

Personal life

Alamgir's son Jalal Alamgir, an educationist in Massachusetts, died in a tragic accident on 3 December 2011 at Pattaya, Thailand.[20]

References
  1. "List of 11th Parliament Members". Bangladesh Parliament. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 9 April 2014. Retrieved 18 March 2014.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Ministry of Home Affairs, Office of the Honorable Minister Archived 9 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  4. "Dr. Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir". Farmers Bank Limited. Archived from the original on 8 September 2017. Retrieved 12 September 2017.
  5. "CV". Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 17 February 2013.
  6. "No, thanks!". thedailystar.net.
  7. Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, Jailer Kotha Manusher Kotha (My Days in Jail), Dhaka: Subarna, 2003
  8. Asian Human Rights Commission, "Bangladesh: Arbitrary Detention and Torture of Dr. Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir", 11 April 2002
  9. "Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights & Law Program". aaas.org.
  10. "Bangladesh: Bangladesh: arrest, detention and torture of Dr. Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir (Case: BGD 090402)" (Case). World Organisation Against Torture. 9 April 2002. Retrieved 26 April 2013.
  11. "Bangladesh: deaths in custody must be investigated". Amnesty International (UK). 19 December 2002. Archived from the original on 12 June 2013. Retrieved 26 April 2013.
  12. "The Janatar Mancha Case", The Independent (Bangladesh), 27 December 2002
  13. "The Plot Against MKA: A son's protest". The Daily Star. 5 (1044). 10 May 2007.
  14. [archive.thedailystar.net/2007/07/11/d7071101044.htm "Eminent persons tell court Alamgir honest"], The Daily Star, 11 July 2007
  15. [archive.thedailystar.net/2007/07/27/d7072701022.htm "MK Alamgir Handed 13 Years Over Graft"], The Daily Star, 27 July 2007.
  16. The Independent (Bangladesh), 22 October 2008
  17. "MK Alamgir Freed on Bail". The Daily Star. 22 October 2008.
  18. "HC scraps sentence against MK Alamgir". The Daily Star. 13 July 2009. Archived from the original on 6 October 2012.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  19. "Bangladesh Bank vs MK Alamgir". The Daily Star. 15 January 2016. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
  20. "MK Alamgir's son killed in Thailand accident". banglanews24.com. 3 December 2011. Archived from the original on 13 December 2013.
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