Gaziul Haque

Gaziul Haque
Born	(1929-02-13)February 13, 1929 Feni District, East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh)
Died	17 June 2009(2009-06-17) (aged 80)
Occupation	Language Activist of Bengali Language Movement, Senior Advocate, Bangladesh Supreme Court, Chairman of Press Institute of Bangladesh, Member of Advisory Committee of the Awani League
Nationality	Bangladeshi

Bhashasoynik Gaziul Haque (Bengali: গাজীউল হক Gajiul Hok) (February 13, 1929 - June 17, 2009) is a language activist and a renowned student leader during the Bengali Language Movement.

Early life

Gaziul Haque was born in Nishchintopur village of Chagalnaiyyan Thana in Feni district on February 13, 1929. He passed matriculation from Bogra Zilla School in 1946. Next year on September he joined the Democracy Summit in Dhaka. He was the chairman of the procession of a news published in the English daily Morning News.

Career

He chaired the meeting at the Dhaka University premises on February 21, 1952. At this meeting, he was the first to propose violating Section 144. All the attendees at the meeting agreed with the proposal, and a decision to violate Section 144 was made. Later that day police fired into the students who demanded equal status of Bengali along with Urdu and eventually they prevailed. On March 11, 1948, he took part in the rally demanding the status of Bangla which was directed by Muhammad Shahidullah. At the end of July in 1951, he joined a meeting along with other student leaders of that time to influence the dimming Language Movement. At the end of the meeting a leaflet was supplied by Abdul Matin.Earlier on 11th March, 1951 a meeting was organized by the then East Pakistan Chatra League at Dhaka University campus. Khaleque Nawaz Khan, President of Chatra League presided over that meeting.In that meeting Abdul Matin was selected as convener of Dhaka University language movement committee.

On 30 January 1952 when Khwaja Nazimuddin reiterated about their language policy, Gaziul Haque captained a meeting at the Dhaka University campus and also run a rally of the agitated students. He also chaired the meeting at Amtala on February 4. On February 21, 1952, Haque again chaired the all important meeting which decided to break the Section 144. After the police attack he got injured and forced to go to hospital. Next day he had to hide after the threat by the government. On April 14, 1953 he was fired from the University for student politics and his M. A. degree was suspended by the authority. Later his degree was restored and suspension was lifted due to student procession. Gaziul Haque was arrested again on February 19 of the next year and released on April 18. In his professional career, Haque is a lawyer by profession.^[1] The 44th convocation of the University of Dhaka held in 2008 honored him by giving the degree 'Doctor of Literature'.

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