Swadhin Bangla Betar's sound engineer Rashidul passes away

Rashidul Hussain, a sound engineer who played a key role in the early transmission of Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra (SBBK), breathed his last due to old age complications in a Dhaka hospital early yesterday, aged 72.

When the war broke out, Rashidul, a technical assistant at the then Radio Pakistan, along with a couple of his colleagues, picked a 1KW medium wave transmitter from their Chittagong office and took it to a clandestine spot from where SBBK broadcasts were made.

"In those days, transmitters were the size of large wardrobes, and transporting under the nose of a rampaging army was no easy deal," Rashidul's friend and a playback singer at SBBK Rafiqul Islam told The Daily Star.

As days passed, SBBK started broadcasting from a studio in Kolkata. Rafiqul added that he, Rashidul, and three other artistes and technicians lived in a dingy room with no bed near the studio until the 1971 Liberation War ended.

"I remember Rashidul catching a whooping cough from sleeping on the floor for months."

With lung and kidney problems, Rashidul had been on life support at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital, said his son Md Monir.

His body was taken to Bangladesh Betar in the morning for a namaz-e-janaza.

He was buried in his family graveyard in Brahmanbaria with state honour.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor expressed deep shock at the death.