Army engineers are set to observe today the 47th death anniversary of freedom fighter and martyred intellectual Lt Col Muhammad Abdul Qadir, who was killed by the Pakistani troops at the very onset of the Liberation War, reports BSS. Qadirabad Cantonment, named after the martyr in Natore, is set to stage a milad mahfil at its Central Mosque seeking divine peace for the departed soul. An army sapper Qadir joined the Liberation War as he was serving on deputation as the controller of operations at the then East Pakistan Oil & Gas Development Corporation in Chittagong but he was caught by the Pakistani troops as he secretly returned home to see his ailing wife on April 17. He embraced martyrdom on the same day.

The government later established a cantonment named after him and also issued a postal stamp of him as one of the martyred intellectuals.

Qadir's grave was found in 2007 and he was reburied with full state and military honour in 2011 at Qadirabad Cantonment.

After decades of desperate search by Lt Col Qadir’s son, journalist Nadeem Qadir, and four years into the discovery of the grave of the 1971 martyr, the remains were extracted from an earlier unidentified grave in Panchlaish area in Chittagong amid religious rituals and military ceremonies. Subsequently, it was reburied in Natore.