Mosharraf Hossain Akhunji

Mosharraf Hossain Akhunji died at about 2.30pm on Monday 9 November 2026 while undergoing treatment at a private clinic in Uttara, Dhaka. He was 90. His son Shahriar Akhunji confirmed the death to The Daily Star and said his father had died of age related complications.

The family brought his body from Dhaka to their home in Kumarpara, Rajshahi, and his namaz e janaza was expected to be held after Zuhr prayers the following day. Leaders of political, social, cultural and journalists' organisations in Rajshahi expressed their grief.

Mosharraf Hossain Akhunji was born in 1936 and grew up in Rajshahi, in what was then the Bengal Presidency of British India and became East Pakistan in 1947. He was politically aware from an early age. He passed his secondary school examination from Loknath School in Rajshahi, then studied at Rajshahi College, and completed his higher education at Nilphamari Degree College.

Akhunji joined the Language Movement while still in class ten, at the age of sixteen. Through contact with Rajshahi student leaders including Dr S M Bappa, Golam Arif Tipu and Ataur Rahman, he became involved in student politics and the language struggle committee. He campaigned at educational institutions, student messes and hostels across the Rajshahi region to explain why Bengali should be a state language and to persuade students to join the movement.

On the night of 21 February 1952, after news arrived of the police shooting of students in Dhaka, he was one of the organisers who built a memorial to the language martyrs in front of the Muslim hostel of Rajshahi College, using bricks and mud. It was demolished the next morning by police and members of the ruling Muslim League. Rajshahi's surviving language veterans, Akhunji among them, long argued that it was the country's first Shaheed Minar and asked for it to be officially recognised as such.

As a student he was involved in the National Awami Party and was openly active in the Communist Party, and he remained committed to left wing, non communal politics throughout his life. He took part in the Liberation War of 1971 and was known as a freedom fighter.

After his studies he worked for some time at the Rajshahi Education Board before going into business. He ran Ek Number Gadi Ghar, a long established family shop in the RDA Market area of Rajshahi, into his old age, and was involved with several local civic organisations.

Akhunji married soon after finishing his education. He had one son, Shahriar Akhunji, and two daughters. His home was in the Kumarpara area of Rajshahi city.

Akhunji was one of the last living organisers of the 1952 Language Movement in Rajshahi, a city that played a leading part in the struggle outside Dhaka. His account of building the bricks and mud memorial at Rajshahi College on the night of 21 February 1952 is part of the case Rajshahi's veterans have made for it to be recognised as the first Shaheed Minar. In his last years he continued to speak up for the proper status of the Bengali language and for preserving the history of the movement.