Abdul Muntaquim Chaudhury

Abu Taher Abdul Muntaquim Chaudhury was born on 2 September 1929 in the Sylhet region of what was then the Assam Province of British India. He was the youngest child of Khan Bahadur Tajammul Ali Chaudhury, who served as deputy commissioner and hakim of Sylhet and wrote the Tawarikh i Halimi, published in 1894. The family belonged to the Bengali Muslim zamindars of Kanihati, and his elder brother was Abdul Munim Chaudhury.

He completed his Intermediate in Arts at Aligarh Muslim University and continued his studies at Visva Bharati in Santiniketan and at St Xavier's College. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Calcutta and was then called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in London, beginning his career as a barrister.

Chaudhury entered active politics in the 1960s and was a member of the 3rd National Assembly of Pakistan. He supported the Bengali language movement and the Six Point movement for East Pakistani autonomy.

In the 1970 election he was returned to the Pakistan National Assembly as an Awami League candidate, from the Kulaura and Barlekha area of Sylhet. That election paved the way for the independence struggle, and during the Liberation War of 1971 he served as an organiser of the movement.

After independence he became a member of the Constituent Assembly and of the committee that drafted the Constitution of Bangladesh. He is remembered for arguing against the provision, later Article 70, that allowed members to be expelled from parliament if they were expelled from their party. In the 1973 general election he won the Sylhet 13 constituency, again for the Awami League, and sat in the first Jatiya Sangsad.

In 1973 Chaudhury was appointed Bangladesh's ambassador to Japan, one of the young state's most important early postings. His close relationships in Japan helped open the way for Japanese investment and for activity that fed the growth of Bangladesh's textile industry, and he came to be regarded as an architect of Bangladesh and Japan relations. One result often linked to that period was the Japanese funded Sonargaon hotel in Dhaka.

He later served as ambassador to the German Democratic Republic, and Wikipedia also records him as accredited to South Korea. He returned to Bangladesh in 1979.

Back in Dhaka, Chaudhury turned his attention to law reform and access to justice. He was a founding trustee and the first executive director of the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust, BLAST, which went on to become one of the country's foremost legal rights organisations, offering free legal help to poor and marginalised people across Bangladesh.

Abdul Muntaquim Chaudhury died in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday 9 October 2026, at the age of 97. His son in law, the agricultural scientist Abed Chowdhury, confirmed the death to Prothom Alo. BLAST issued a statement of mourning signed by its honorary executive director Sara Hossain, describing him as a distinguished lawyer, an organiser of the Liberation War and a member of the constitution drafting committee, and his death was reported by The Daily Star, Dhaka Tribune and Channel i.