Md. Abdul Hai

Md. Abdul Hai was born on 5 January 1949 in Hosendi village, Hosendi Union, in Gazaria Upazila of Munshiganj District, then part of East Pakistan. His father, Monir Uddin, was a businessman. His elder brother, Mohiuddin Ahmed, later served as member secretary of the Munshiganj District unit of the BNP.

He completed his secondary education at Munshiganj Multilateral High School and went on to Government Haraganga College in Munshiganj, where he earned his Higher Secondary Certificate and a Bachelor of Arts degree. He became involved in politics during his student years and took part in the 1971 Liberation War, for which he was honoured in Bangladesh as a freedom fighter.

Abdul Hai first held elected office in 1973, when he became chairman of Panchasar Union Parishad in Munshiganj, a post he won while still studying for his degree. He joined the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in 1978, the year it was founded, and in the 1979 general election he was elected to the second Jatiya Sangsad from the undivided Dhaka-8 constituency.

The BNP stayed out of the 1986 and 1988 elections. When parliamentary politics returned, Hai won the Munshiganj-4 constituency in the 1991 general election and held it in the February 1996 and June 1996 elections and again in 2001, giving him five terms in parliament in all. In the fifth parliament (1991 to 1996) he served as deputy minister in the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives. In the eighth parliament (2001 to 2006) he was elected a panel speaker, one of the members who preside over sittings in the absence of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker.

In the party organisation he served as central treasurer and as secretary for local government affairs on the BNP central committee, as an adviser to BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, and as president of the Munshiganj District BNP. After the Munshiganj-4 seat was abolished, he received the BNP nomination for Dhaka-4 in the 2008 general election. He did not stand in 2014, when the BNP boycotted the vote.

Abdul Hai was married to Jamila Khatun, and the couple had children. He remained closely tied to Munshiganj throughout his life, and local reports after his death described him as a figure who had played a prominent role in the district's politics for decades.

During the years of the Sheikh Hasina government he became widely recognised online after a speech to party activists at a public gathering in which he declared, "Allah, I seek justice from You." A video clip of the moment spread across social media platforms and was reused in humorous and protest content.

Abdul Hai died at around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday 15 October 2026 while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Dhanmondi, Dhaka, according to family sources quoted by The Business Standard and the national news agency BSS. He was 77. The cause of death was not made public.

His family arranged his first funeral prayer at the South Plaza of the National Parliament, with Prime Minister Tarique Rahman expected to attend, after which his body was to be taken to Munshiganj for a second funeral prayer and burial. Party leaders, activists and well-wishers in Munshiganj expressed their condolences.

Abdul Hai was one of the BNP's longest-serving figures in Munshiganj, with a public career stretching from union council chairman in 1973 through five parliamentary terms, a deputy ministership and service as a panel speaker. He is remembered in Bangladesh as a freedom fighter of 1971 and as a loyal adviser to Khaleda Zia, and the online life of his "I seek justice" speech made him familiar to many Bangladeshis born long after his first election.