bdnews24.com :
Mahfuza Fateh, the wife of Bangladesh’s first foreign secretary and acting adviser to the Mujibnagar government Abul Fateh, has died.
She passed away on Sunday morning local time in London, the family said. She was 89 and had witnessed many of the defining moments of Bangladesh’s fight for independence.
Mahfuza Fateh died surrounded by her family, including her two sons – Eenasul Fateh and Anatul Fateh, her daughters-in-law and grandchildren.
The senior-most Bangladeshi official in the Pakistan Civil Service, Abul Fateh had been the ambassador to Baghdad when the Liberation War broke out in 1971.
He later switched sides and fled to London.
He was the first diplomat to defect from Pakistan and support Bangladesh’s independence. The incident rattled the Pakistani administration.
Mahfuza Fateh was with her husband and two young sons when they fled Baghdad and, after many difficulties, reached London through Lebanon.
The Mujibnagar government in 1971 initially appointed Abul Fateh as ambassador at large. He later became an adviser to Syed Nazrul Islam, the acting president of the provisional government. Fateh became Bangladesh’s first foreign secretary after independence.
When the Pakistan military surrendered on Dec 16, 1971, the government was still in exile. Abul Fateh was part of an eight-member delegation from the provisional government who came to Dhaka from Kolkata on Dec 18 to take control of some major establishments, including the airport.
He, alongside the then Secretary General of the Cabinet Ruhul Quddus, was the most senior government representative in the country until the arrival of Syed Nazrul Islam and 22 members of the cabinet on Dec 22.
Fateh retired in 1982 and, about a decade later, immigrated to London with his two sons. He died there in 2010.
